MR.  ADAMS'S 


EULOGY, 


ON    THE    LIFE    AND    CHARACTER    OF 


JAIIIE8  xTEOMROi:. 


C^ 


DUKE 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 


Treasure  %oom 


EULOGY: 

ox  THE 

LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  • 

OF 

JAMES    MONROE, 

t 

FIFTH    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

DELIVERED    AT    THE    REQUEST    OF    THE 

CORPORATION  OF  THE  CITY  OF  BOSTON, 

ON    THE 

25th  of  ^tugust^  1S3I. 


BY  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 


Ut  vultiis  liominum,  ita  simulacra  viiltus  imbecilla  ac  mortalia  sunt. 
Forma  mentis  a^terna,  quam  tenere  et  exprimere  non  por  alienamma- 
teriam  et  artem..  sed  tuis  ipse  moribus  possis.     Tacitus  ^gricoloe  Vita. 


BOSTON: 

J.    H.    EASTBURN....CITY    PRINTER. 

1831. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S3I,' 

By  John  H.  Eastburn, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  Massachusetts. 


rs  ^  I  ^T  C-- 


CITY  OF  BOSTON. 


In  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  Aug.  25,  1831. 

Besolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  City  Council  be  presented  to  the  Hon. 
John  0,uincy  Adams,  for  the  eloquent  Eulogy  delivered  by  him,  this 
day,  at  the  Old  South  Church,  bj'  their  request,  in  memory  of"  the  late 
venerable  James  Monkoe,  and  that  a  copy  be  requested  for  the  press. 

Resolved.  That  Aldermen  Oliver,  Russell,  Binney  and  Harris,  with 
such  as  the  Common  Council  may  join,  bo  a  Committee  to  carry  the  fore- 
going resolve  into  effect. 

Sent  down  for  concurrence, 

HENRY  J.  OLIVER,  Chairman  pro  tern. 
• 

In  Common  Council,  Aug.  25,  1831. 
Read  and  Concurred,  and  Messrs.  Stevens,  Bigelow,  James,  Rayner  and 
Wetmore  arc  joined. 

B.  T.  PICKMAN,  President. 
A  TRUE  Copy — Attest, 

S.  F.  M'CLEARY,  C//y  Clerk. 


Henry  J.  Oliver,  Esq.,  Chairman  of  the  Board 
of  Aldermen  of  the  City  of  Boston. 

QuiNCY,  Aug.  26,  1831. 
Sir — I  have  received  your  letter  of  this  day's  date,  enclosing  the  Joint 
Resolutions  of  the  Boards  of  Aldermen  and  Common  Council  of  the  City, 
requesting  a  copy  of  the  Eulogy  delivered  yesterday  by  me,  for  the  press. 
An  affectionate  regard  for  the  memory  of  Mr.  Monroe,  induced  me  in 
preparing  the  Discourse,  which  the  City  Council  had  done  me  the  honour 
of  inviting  me  to  deliver,  to  take  a  review  of  the  principal  incidents  of  his 
life,  more  extensive  than  it  was  practicable  to  deliver  within  the  compass 
of  time  usually  allotted  to  such  occasions.  I  place  at  the  disposal  of  the 
City  Council,  with  my  respectful  thanks  to  them  for  the  opportunity  af- 
forded me  by  their  appointment,  of  manifesting  my  deep  sense  of  the  vir- 
tues and  public  services  of  Mr.  Monroe,  a  copy  of  the  Eulogy  as  it  was 
prepared,  considerable  portions  of  which  it  was  found  necessary  to  omit,  in 
the  delivery. 

I  am  with  much  respect.  Sir,  your  very  obedient  servant, 

J.  Q.  ADAMS. 


E  TJ  L  O  G  Y . 


Among  the  peculiarities  affecting  the  condition  of 
human  existence,  in  a  community  ibrmed  within  the 
period  allotted  to  the  life  of  man,  is  the  state  of 
being  exclusively  belonging  to  the  individuals  who 
assisted  in  the  formation  of  that  community.  Three 
thousand  years  have  elapsed  since  the  Monarch  of 
Israel,  w^ho,  from  that  time,  has  borne  the  reputation 
of  the  wisest  of  men,  declared  that  there  was  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun.  And  then,  as  now,  the  asser- 
tion, confined  to  the  operations  of  nature,  to  the  in- 
stincts of  animal  life,  to  the  primary  purposes,  and 
innate  passions  of  human  kind,  was,  and  is,  strictly 
true.  Of  all  the  illustrations  of  the  sentiment  given 
by  him,  the  course  is  now  as  it  was  then.  One 
generation  passeth  away,  and  another  generation 
cometh.  To  the  superficial  observation  of  the  human 
eye,  the  Sun  still  ariseth  and  goeth  down  ;  the  wind 
whirlcth  about  continually  ;  all  rivers  run  into  the 
sea,  which  yet  is  not  full ;  and  all  things  are  full  of 
labour,  which  man  cannot  utter  :  yet,  although  the 
thing  that  hath  been  is  that  which  shall  be,  and  that 
which  is  done  is  that  which  shall  be  done, — still  the 
eye   is   not  satisfied   with  seeing,  nor  the  ear  filled 


with  hearing  :  and  this  affords  the  solution  to  all  the 
rest.  The  aspirations  of  man  to  a  better  condition 
than  that  which  he  enjoys,  are  at  once  the  pledges 
pf  his  immortality,  and  the  privileges  of  his  existence 
upon  earth ;  they  combine  for  his  enjoyment  the  still 
freshening  charms  of  novelty  with  the  immutable 
laws  of  creation,  and  intertwine  the  ever-varying 
felicities  of  his  condition  with  the  unchangeable  mo- 
notony of  nature. 

Thus,  a  thousand  years  after  Solomon  had  ceased 
to  exist  upon  earth,  when  his  kingdom  had  been  ex- 
tinguished, and  his  nation  carried  into  captivity, 
there  arose  among  his  own  descendants,  a  Redeemer 
of  the  human  race  from  the  thraldom  of  sin ;  the 
Mediator  of  a  new  covenant  between  God  and  man. 
From  that  time,  though  all  remained  unchanged  in  the 
phenomena  of  creation,  all  was  new  in  the  condition 
of  human  life.  In  the  rise  and  fall  of  successive 
empires,  other  novelties  succeed  each  other  from  age 
to  age.  New  planets  are  discovered  in  the  heavens, 
and  new  continents  are  revealed  upon  earth. 
New  pursuits  are  opened  to  industry  ;  new  comforts 
to  enjoyment ;  new  prospects  to  hope.  The  secrets 
of  the  physical  and  intellectual  world  are  gradually 
disclosed  ;  the  powers  of  man  are  from  time  to  time 
enlarged  : — but  the  eye  is  not  satisfied  with  seeing, 
nor  the  ear  filled  with  hearing.  The  tendency  of 
the  magnet  to  the  Pole,  and  its  application  to  the 
purposes  of  navigation  ;  the  composition  of  gunpow- 
der, and  its  application  to  the  purposes  of  war  ;  the 
invention  of  printing,  and  its  application  to  all  the 
purposes  of  man,  in  peace  and  war, — to  the  wants  of 
the  body,  and  the  expansion  of  the  mind, — the  gift 


as  it  were,  of  a  new  earth  to  replenish  and  subdue, 
by  the  disclosure  of  a  new  hemisphere,  to  the  enter- 
prise and  capacities  of  man ;  all  these  things  are 
new  in  the  records  of  the  human  species.  Each  of 
these  things  diverted  into  a  new  channel  the  current 
of  human  affairs,  and  furnished  for  the  lord  of  the 
creation  a  new  system  of  occupations  in  his  progress 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 

But  of  all  the  changes  effected,  and  all  the  novel- 
ties introduced  into  the  condition  of  human  beings, 
since  the  promulgation  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  none 
has  been  more  considerable  than  that,  the  develope- 
ment  of  which  began  with  the  severance  of  the  Bri- 
tish colonies  in  North  America,  from  the  parent- 
stock.  The  immediate  collisions  of  rights,  interests, 
and  passions,  which  produced  tlie  conflict  between  the 
parties,  and  ended  in  sundering  the  two  portions  of 
the  empire  engaged,  occupied  and  absorbed  the  agen- 
cy and  the  powers  of  the  actors  on  that  memorable 
theatre.  An  English  poet  has  declared  it  praise 
enough  to  fill  the  ambition  of  a  common  man,  that 
he  was  the  countryman  of  Wolfe,  and  spoke  the  lan- 
guage of  Chatham.  The  colonists,  who  achieved 
the  independence  of  North  America,  were  the  coun- 
trymen of  Wolfe,  and  Chatham's  language  was  their 
mother-tongue.  But  of  what  avail  for  praise  would 
this  have  been  to  them,  had  they  not  possessed  souls, 
inspired  with  the  same  principles,  and  hearts  en- 
dowed with  higher  energies  than  those  which  con- 
ducted those  illustrious  names  to  the  pinnacle  of 
glory.  Never  would  the  object  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can Revolution  have  been  accomplished  but  by  men, 
in  whose  bosoms  the  love  of  liberty  had  been  im- 


8 

planted  from  their  birth,  and  imbibed  from  the  ma- 
ternal breast. 

Considered  in  itself,  the  independence  of  our  coun- 
try was  only  the  splitting  up  of  one  civilized  nation 
into  two — caused  by  usurpation ;  consummated  by 
war.  As  such,  it  constituted  one  great  element  in 
the  history  of  civilized  man  during  its  continuance ; 
but  that  was  short  and  transient.  From  the  Stamp 
Act  to  the  definitive  Treaty  of  Peace,  concluded  at 
Paris,  on  the  third  of  September,  1783,  a  term  of 
less  than  twenty  years  intervened, — a  term  scarcely 
sufficient  for  the  action  of  one  of  the  dramas  of 
Shakspeare.  It  was  not  even  equal  to  the  duration 
of  one  age  of  man.  We  have  already  lived  since  the 
close  of  that  momentous  struggle  nearly  thrice  the 
extent  of  time,  in  which  it  passed  through  all  its 
stages,  and  there  are  yet  among  the  living  those 
whose  birth  preceded  even  that  of  the  questions  upon 
which  hinged  our  independent  existence  as  a  nation. 

Among  these  was  the  distinguished  person,  whose 
earthly  career  terminated  on  the  fifty-fifth  Anniver- 
sary of  our  National  Independence. 

James  Monroe  was  born  in  September,  1759,  in 
the  County  of  Westmoreland,  in  the  then  Colony 
of  Virginia ;  and  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  was  in  the  process  of  completing  his 
education  at  the  college  of  William  and  Mary.  He 
was  then  seventeen  years  of  age,  and  at  the  first 
formation  of  the  American  army  entered  it  as  a 
cadet.  Had  he  been  born  ten  years  before,  it  can 
scarcely  be  doubted  that  he  would  have  been  one  of 
the  members  of  the  first  Congress,  and  that  his  name 
would  have  gone  down  to  posterity  among  those  of 


the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Among  the  blessings  conferred  by  a  beneficent  Provi- 
dence upon  this  country  in  the  series  of  events  which 
composed  that  Revolution,  was  its  influence  in  the 
formation  of  individual  and  of  national  character.  The 
controversy  which  preceded  the  Revolutionary  war, 
necessarily  formed  by  a  practical  education  the  race 
of  statesmen,  by  whom  it  was  conducted  to  its  close- 
The  nature  of  the  controversy  itself,  turning  upon 
the  elementary  principles  of  civil  society,  upon  the 
natural  rights  of  man,  and  the  foundations  of  govern- 
ment, pointed  the  attention  of  men  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  those  principles  ;  exercised  all  the  intellectual 
faculties  of  the  most  ardent  and  meditative  souls, 
and  led  to  discoveries  in  tlie  theory  of  government 
which  have  changed  the  face  of  the  world. 

The  conflict  of  mind  preceded  that  of  matter. 
The  question  at  issue,  between  Great  Britain  and  her 
colonies,  was  purely  a  question  of  right.  On  one 
side,  a  pretension  to  authority,  on  the  other  a  claim 
of  freedom.  It  was  a  lawsuit  between  the  British 
king  and  Parliament  of  the  one  part,  and  the  people 
of  the  colonics,  of  the  other,  pleaded  before  the  tri- 
bunal of  the  human  race.  It  was  an  advantage  to 
the  cause  of  the  colonies  in  that  contest,  that  it  re- 
posed exclusively  upon  the  basis  of  right.  "  Au- 
thority,"   says  a  keen   observer  of   human  nature, 

"  Authority,  though  it  err  like  others, 
"  Hath  yet  a  kind  of  medicine  in  itself 
"  That  skins  the  vice  on  the  top." 

In  the  preluding  struggle,  to  the  war  of  Independ- 
ence, British  authority  was  constantly  administering 
this  self-healing  medicine  to  her  own  wrongs.     The 
2 


10 

first  asserfion  of  lier  right,  was  an  act  of  Parliament 
to  levy  a  tax.  When  she  found  its  execution  im- 
practicable, she  repealed  the  tax,  but  declared  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  make  laws  for  the  colonies,  in 
all  cases  wiiatsoever.  To  this  mere  declaration,  the 
colonies  could  make  no  resistance.  It  skinned  the 
vice  on  the  top.  With  the  next  act  of  taxation,  she 
sent  fleets  and  armies  for  the  healing  medicine  to 
her  errors.  She  dissolved  the  colonial  Assemblies, 
revoked  the  colonial  charters,  sealed  up  the  port  of 
Boston,  annihilated  the  colonial  fisheries,  and  pro- 
claimed the  province  of  Massachusetts  bay  in  rebel- 
lion. These  were  the  healing  medicines  of  British 
authority  ;  while  the  only  pretence  of  right  that  she 
could  allege  for  all  these  acts,  was  the  sovereignty 
of  the  British  Parliament. 

To  contend  against  this  array  of  power,  the  only 
defence  of  the  colonies  at  the  outset  was  the  right 
and  justice  of  their  cause.  From  the  first  promul- 
gation of  the  Stamp- Act,  the  spirit  of  resistance  with 
the  speed  of  a  sunbeam,  flashed  instantaneous 
through  all  the  colonies ;  kindled  every  heart  and 
raised  every  arm.  But  this  spirit  of  resistance,  and 
this  unanimity,  would  have  been  transitory  and 
evanescent,  had  it  not  been  sustained,  invigorated, 
and  made  invincible,  by  the  basis  of  eternal  and  im- 
mutable justice  in  the  cause.  It  engrossed,  it  ab- 
sorbed all  the  faculties  of  the  soul.  It  inspired  the 
eloquence  which  poured  itself  forth  in  the  colonial 
Assemblies,  in  the  instructions  from  the  inhabitants 
of  many  of  the  towns  to  their  Representatives,  and 
even  in  newspaper  essays,  and  occasional  pamphlets 
by  individuals.     The  general  contest  gave  rise  to 


11 

frequent  incidental  controTersies  between  the  royal 
Governors,  and  the  colonial  Legislatures,  in  which 
the  collision  of  principles,  stimulated  the  energies, 
directed  the  researches,  and  expanded  the  faculties 
of  those  who  maintained  the  rights  of  their  country. 
The  profoundest  philosophical  statesman  of  the  Brit- 
ish empire,  at  that  period,  noticed  the  operation  of 
these  causes,  in  one  of  his  admirable  speeches  to  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  remarked  the  natural  ten- 
dency and  effect  of  the  study  and  practice  of  the  law, 
to  quicken  the  intellect,  and  to  sharpen  the  reason- 
ing powers  of  men.  He  observed  the  preponderant 
portion  of  lawyers  in  the  colonial  Legislatures,  and 
in  the  continental  Congress,  and  the  influence  of 
their  oratory  and  their  argument  upon  the  under- 
standing and  the  will  of  their  countrymen.  Yet  that 
same  clear  sighted  and  penetrating  statesman,  long 
after  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  penned  with 
his  own  hand  an  address  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  urging  them  to  return  to  their  British  allegi- 
ance, and  assuring  them  that  their  struggle  against 
the  colossal  power  of  Great  Britain,  must  be  fruit- 
less and  vain.  Chatham  himself,  the  most  eloquent 
orator  of  England — whose  language  it  is  the  boast  of 
honest  pride  to  speak — Chatham,  a  peer  of  the  Brit- 
ish realm,  in  the  sanctuary  of  her  legislation,  declar- 
ed his  approbation  of  the  American  cause,  his  dis- 
claimer of  all  right  in  Parliament  to  tax  the  colonies, 
and  his  joy,  that  the  people  of  the  colonies,  had  re- 
sisted the  pretension.  Yet  that  same  Chatham,  not 
only  after  the  declaration,  l)ut  after  the  conclusion  of 
solemn  treaties  of  alliance  bet\A  een  the  United 
States  and   France,   sacrificed   the   remnant   of    his 


12 

days,  and  wasted  his  expiring  breath,  in  feeble  and 
fruitless  protestations  against  the  irrevocable  sentence 
to  which  his  country  was  doomed — the  acknowl- 
edgement of  American  Independence.  It  has  been 
said,  that  men's  judgments  are  a  parcel  of  their  for- 
tunes ;  and  they  who  believe  in  a  superintending 
Providence  have  constant  occasion  to  remark  the 
wisdom  from  above,  which  unfolds  the  jjurposes  of 
signal  improvement  in  the  condition  of  man,  by  pre- 
paring, and  maturing  in  advance,  the  instruments  by 
which  they  are  ultimately  to  be  accomplished.  The 
intellectual  conflict,  which,  for  a  term  of  twelve 
years,  had  preceded  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, had  formed  a  race  ofmen^  of  whom  the  signers 
of  that  instrument  were  the  selected  and  faithful 
representatives.  Their  constituents  were  like  them- 
selves. Life,  fortune,  and  sacred  honour,  were 
staked  upon  the  maintenance  of  that  declaration. 
Not  alone  the  life,  fortune,  and  sacred  honour  of  the 
individuals  who  signed  their  names,  but  with  little 
exception,  of  the  people  whom  they  represented. 
One  spirit  animated  the  mass,  and  that  spirit  A\as 
invincible.  It  is  a  striking  circumstance  to  remark, 
that  in  the  island  of  Great  Britain,  not  a  single  mind 
existed  capable  of  comprehending  this  spirit  and  its 
power.  Deeper  and  more  capacious  minds,  bolder 
and  more  ardent  hearts,  than  Burke  and  Chatham, 
have  seldom,  in  any  age  of  the  world,  and  in  any 
region  of  the  earth,  appeared  upon  the  stage  of  action. 
Yet  we  have  here  unquestionable  demonstration 
that  neither  of  them  had  iormed  a  conception  of  the 
power,  physical,  moral,  and  intellectual,  of  that  un- 
€xtinguishable  flame  which  pervaded  every  particle 


13 

of  the  man,  soul  and  body,  of  the  self  declared  inde- 
pendent American.  It  is  an  easy  resource  of  vulgar 
controversy  to  transfer  the  stress  of  her  argument 
from  the  cause,  to  the  motive  of  her  adversary,  and 
the  rottenness  of  any  cause,  will  generally  be  found 
proportioned  to  the  propensity  manifested  by  its  sup- 
porters to  resort  to  this  expedient.  On  the  question 
which  bred  the  revolution  of  independence,  the  tax- 
ation of  tlie  colonies  by  Parliament,  all  the  great 
and  leading  minds  of  the  British  islands,  all  who 
have  left  a  name  on  \\  liich  the  memory  of  posterity 
will  repose,  Mansfield  and  Johnson  excepted,  were 
on  the  American  side.  Burke,  Cliatham,  Camden, 
Fox,  Sheridan,  Rockingham,  Dunning,  Barre,  Lans- 
down,  all  recorded  their  constant,  deep,  and  solemn 
protestations,  against  the  system  of  measures  whicli 
forced  upon  the  colonies  the  blessing  of  Independ- 
ence. But  when  Chatham  and  Camden  raised  in 
vain  their  voices  to  arrest  the  uplifted  arm  of  oppress- 
ion, George  Grenville  and  his  abettors  knew,  or 
deemed  so  little  of  the  s])irit  and  argument  of  the 
Americans,  that  they  affirmed  it  was  all  furnished  for 
them  by  Chatham  and  Camden,  and  that  their  only 
motive  was  to  supplant  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. Adam  Smith,  the  penetrating  searcher  in- 
to the  causes  of  the  wealth  of  nations,  whose  book 
was  published  about  a  year  after  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  without  deigning  to  spend  a  word  up- 
on the  cause  of  America,  with  deep  sagacity  of  face 
and  gravity  of  muscle,  assures  his  readers,  that  they 
are  very  weak,  who  imagine  that  the  Americans  will 
easily  be  conquered — for  tliat  the  continental  Con- 
gress consists  of  men,  who  from  shopkeepers,  trades- 


14 

men  and  attornies,  arc  become  statesmen  and  leffls- 
lators.  That  they  are  employed  in  contriving  a  new 
form  of  government,  for  an  extensive  empire,  which 
they  justly  Hatter  tliemsclves  will  become  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  formidable  that  ever  was  in  the 
world.  That  if  the  Americans  should  be  subdued, 
all  these  men  luould  lose  their  importance — and  the 
remedy  that  he  proposes  is,  to  start  a  new  object  for 
their  ambition,  by  forming  a  union  of  the  colonies 
w  itli  Great  Britain,  and  admitting  some  of  the  lead- 
ing Americans  into  Parliament.  Yet  this  man  was 
the  author  of  a  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  in  which 
he  resolved  all  moral  principle  into  sympathy. 

True  it  was,  that  the  shopkeepers,  tradesmen  and 
attornies,  were  occupied  in  contriving  a  new  form  of 
government,  for  an  extensive  empire,  which  they 
might  reasonably  flatter  themselves  would  become 
the  greatest  and  most  glorious  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  They  were  at  the  same  time  employed 
in  raising,  organizing,  training,  and  disciplining  fleets 
and  armies  to  maintain  the  cause  of  freedom,  and  of 
their  country,  against  all  Britannia's  thunders.  And 
they  were  employed  in  maintaining  by  reason  and 
argument  before  the  tribunal  of  mankind,  and  in  the 
face  of  heaven,  the  eternal  justice  of  their  cause. 
Thus  they  were  employed.  Thus  had  been  employ- 
ed the  members  of  the  continental  Congress  and 
thousands  of  their  constituents,  from  the  time  when 
the  princes  and  nobles  of  Britain  had  imposed  these 
employments  upon  them,  by  the  visitation  of  the 
Stamp-act.  And  now  is  it  not  matter  of  curious 
speculation,  does  it  not  open  new  views  of  human 
nature,    to   observe,    that   while    the    shopkeepers, 


15 

tradesmen  and  attornies  of  British  North  America 
were  thus  employed,  Adam  Smith,  the  profound 
theorist  of  moral  sentiment,  the  illustrious  discoverer 
of  the  sources  of  the  wealth  of  nations,  could  in  the 
depth  and  compass  of  his  mighty  mind,  imagine  no 
operative  impulse  to  the  conduct  of  men  thus  em- 
ployed, but  a  paltry  gratification  of  vanity,  in  their 
individual  importance,  from  which  they  might  easily 
be  weaned,  by  the  superior  and  irresistible  allurement 
of  a  seat  in  the  British  House  of  Commons  ? 

More  than  half  a   century  has  now  passed  away  ; 
the  fruits  of  the  employment  of  these   shopkeepers, 
tradesmen,  and  attornies,  transformed  into  statesmen 
and   legislators,   now^   form   the   most  instructive,  as 
well  as   the  most  splendid  chapter  in  the  history  of 
mankind.     They  did  contrive  a  new  form  of  govern- 
ment for  an  extensive  empire,  which  nothing  under 
the  canopy  of  heaven,  but  the  basest  degeneracy  of 
their  posterity  can  prevent  from  becoming  the  great- 
est and  the  most  formidable  that  the  world  ever  saw. 
They  did  maintain  before  earth  and  heaven,  the  jus- 
tice of  their  cause.     They  did  defend  their  country 
against  all  the  thunders  of  Britain,  and  compelled  her 
monarch,  her  nobles,  and  her  people,  to  acknowledge 
the  Independence  which   they  had  declared,  and   to 
receive  their   confederated  republic  among  the  sove- 
reign potentates  of  the  world.     Of  the  shopkeepers, 
tradesmen  and  attornies  who  composed  the  Congress 
of  Independence,    the    career  on  earth  has   closed. 
They  sleep  with  their  fathers.     Have  they  lost  their 
individual  importance  ?  Say,  ye  who  venerate   as  an 
angel  upon  earth,  the  solitary  remnant  of  that  assem- 
bly, yet  lingering  upon  the  verge  of  eternity.     Give 


16 

me  the  rule  of  pro})ortion,  benveen  a  seat,  from  old 
Sarum,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  name  of 
Charles  Carroll,  of  Carrollton,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Dechinition  of  Independence  ?    Was    honest  fame, 
one  of   tlie  motives   to  action  in   the  human   heart, 
e.xchidcd    from  the   philoso])hical  estimate  of  Adam 
Smith  ?    Did  he  suppose  patriotism,  the  love  of  lib- 
erty,    benevolence,    and     ardour    for    the    welfare 
and   improvement    of   human    kind,  inaccessible   to 
tiie  bosoms  of  the  shopkeeper  statesman,  and  attor- 
ney legislators  ?   I  forbear  to  pursue  the  inquiry  fur- 
ther, though  more  ample  illustration  might  easily  be 
adduced  to  confirm  the  position  which  I  would  sub- 
mit to  your  meditations  :  that  the  conflict   for   our 
national  Independence,  and  the  controversy  of  twelve 
years  which  preceded  it,  did,  in  the  natural  course  of 
events,  and   by  the  ordinary  dispensations  of  Provi- 
dence, produce  and  form  a  race  of  men,  of  moral  and 
intellectual  power,  adapted  to  the  times  and  circum- 
stances in  which  they  lived,  and  with  characters  and 
motives  to  action,  not  only  differing  from  those  which 
predominate  in  other  ages  and  climes,  but  of  which 
men  accustomed  only  to  the  common  place  impulses 
of  human  nature,  are  no  more  able  to  form  a  concep- 
tion, than  blindness,  of  the  colours  of  the  rainbow. 

Of  this  race  of  men,  James  Monroe  was  one — not 
of  those  who  did,  or  could  take  a  part  in  the  prelim- 
inary controversy,  or  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence. He  may  be  said  almost  to  have  been  born 
with  the  question,  for  at  the  date  of  the  Stamp-Act, 
he  was  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  age ;  but  he  was  bred 
in  the  school  of  the  prophets,  and  nurtured  in  the 
detestation  of  tyranny.     His  patriotism  outstripped 


17 

the  lingering  march  of  time,  and  at  the  dawn  of 
manhood,  he  joined  the  standard  of  his  country.  It 
was  at  the  very  period  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, issued  as  you  know  at  the  hour  of  severest 
trial  to  our  country  ;  w  hen  every  aspect  of  her  cause 
was  unpropitious  and  gloomy.  Mr.  Monroe  com- 
menced his  military  career,  as  his  country  did  that 
of  her  Independence,  with  adversity.  He  joined  her 
standard  when  others  were  deserting  it.  He  re- 
paired to  the  head  quarters  of  Washington  at  New- 
York,  precisely  at  the  time  when  Britain  w  as  pour- 
ing her  thousands  of  native  and  foreign  mercenaries, 
upon  our  shores  ;  when  in  proportion  as  the  battal- 
ions of  invading  armies  thickened  and  multiplied, 
those  of  the  heroic  chieftain  of  our  defence  were 
dwindling  to  the  verge  of  dissolution.  When  the 
disastrous  days  of  Flat  Bush,  Haerlem  Heights,  and 
White  Plains,  w^ere  followed  by  the  successive  evac- 
uation of  Long  Island,  and  New- York,  the  surren- 
der of  Fort  Washington,  and  the  retreat  through  the 
Jersies;  till  on  the  day  devoted  to  celebrate  the  birth 
of  the  Saviour  of  mankind,  of  the  same  year  on  which 
Independence  ^^  as  proclaimed,  Washington  with  the 
houseless  heads,  and  unshod  feet,  of  three  thousand 
new  and  undisciplined  levies,  stood  on  the  western 
bank  of  the  Delaware,  to  contend  in  arms  with  the 
British  Lion,  and  to  baffle  the  skill  and  energy  of 
the  chosen  champions  of  Britain,  with  ten  times  the 
number  of  his  shivering  and  emaciate  host;  the 
stream  of  the  Delaware,  forming  the  only  barrier  be- 
tween the  proud  array  of  thirty  thousand  veteran 
Britons,  and  the  scanty  remnant  of  his  dissolving 
bands.  Then  it  was  that  the  glorious  leader  of  our 
3 


18 

forces  struck  the  blow,  wliicli  decided  the  issue  of 
the  war.  Tlien  it  was  that  the  myriads  of  Britain's 
warriors  were  arrested  in  their  career  of  victory,  by 
the  hundreds  of  our  gallant  defenders,  as  the  sling 
of  the  shepherd  of  Israel,  prostrated  the  Philistine, 
who  defied  the  armies  of  the  living  God.  And 
in  this  career  both  of  adverse  and  of  prosperous  for- 
tune, James  Monroe  was  one  of  that  little  Spartan 
band,  scarcely  more  numerous,  though  in  the  event 
more  prosperous,  than  they  who  fell  at  Thermopylae. 
At  the  Heights  of  Haerlem,  at  the  White  Plains,  at 
Trenton  he  was  present,  and  in  leading  the  vanguard 
at  Trenton,  received  a  ball,  which  sealed  his  patriotic 
devotion  to  his  country's  freedom  with  his  blood. — 
The  superintending  Providence  which  had  decreed 
that  on  that,  and  a  swiftly  succeeding  day,  Mercer, 
and  Haselet,  and  Porter,  and  Neal,  and  Fleming, 
and  Shippen,  should  join  the  roll  of  w^arlike  dead, 
martyrs  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  reserved  Monroe 
for  higher  services,  and  for  a  long  and  illustrious  ca- 
reer, in  war  and  in  peace. 

Recovered  from  his  wound,  and  promoted  in  rank, 
as  a  reward  for  his  gallantry  and  suffering  in  the  field, 
he  soon  returned  to  the  Army,  and  served  in  the 
character  of  Aid-de-Camp  to  Lord  Sterling,  through 
the  campaigns  of  1777  and  1778:  during  which, 
he  was  present  and  distinguished  in  the  actions 
of  Brandywine,  Germantovvn,  and  Monmouth.  But, 
having  by  this  been  superseded  of  his  lineal  rank  in 
the  Army,  he  withdrew  from  it,  and  failing,  from  the 
exhausted  state  of  the  country,  in  the  effort  to  raise 
a  regiment,  for  which,  at  the  recommendation  of 
Washington,  he  had  been  authorized  by  the  Legis- 


19 

lature  of  Virginia,  he  resumed  the  study  of  the  law, 
under  the  friendly  direction  of  the  illustrious  Jeffer- 
son, then  Governor  of  that  Commonwealth.  In  the 
succeeding  years,  he  served  occasionally  as  a  volun- 
teer, in  defence  of  the  State,  against  the  distressing 
invasions  with  which  it  was  visited,  and  once,  after 
the  fall  of  Charleston,  South-Carolina,  1780,  at  the 
request  of  Governor  Jefferson,  repaired,  as  a  military 
commissioner,  to  collect  and  report  information  with 
regard  to  the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  southern 
Army  and  States ;  a  trust,  which  he  discharged  to 
the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  Governor  and  Execu- 
tive, by  whom  it  had  been  committed  to  him. 

In  1782,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Legisla- 
ture of  Virginia,  and,  by  them,  a  member  of  the 
Executive  Council.  On  the  ninth  of  June,  1783, 
he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  ;  and,  on  the  thirteenth  of  December, 
of  the  same  year,  took  his  seat  in  that  body,  at  An- 
napolis, where  his  first  act  was,  to  sit  as  one  of  those 
representatives  of  the  nation  into  whose  hands  the 
victorious  leader  of  the  American  Armies  surrendered 
his  commission.  Mr.  Monroe  was  now  twenty- 
four  years  of  age,  and  had  already  performed  that, 
in  the  service  of  his  country,  which  would  have  suf- 
ficed for  the  illustration  of  an  ordinary  life. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  youth  had  been  given  to  her 
defence  in  war  :  the  rigour  and  maturity  of  his  man- 
hood was  now  to  be  devoted  to  her  w  elfare  in  council. 
The  War  of  Independence  closed  as  it  had  begun,  by  a 
transaction  new  under  the  sun.  The  fourth  of  July, 
1776,  had  witnessed  the  social  compact  of  a  self- 
constituted   nation,    formed    by  Peace    and    Union, 


20 

in  the  midst  of  a  calamitous  and  desolating  war. 
To  carry  that  nation  through  this  war,  the  sole  ob- 
ject of  which,  thenceforward,  was  the  perpetual  es- 
tablislinicut  of  that  self-proclaimed  Independence, 
a  Standing-Army  became  indispensable.  Temporary 
levies  of  undisciplined  militia,  and  enlistments  for  a 
few  weeks,  or  months,  were  soon  found  inadequate 
for  defence  against  the  veteran  legions  of  the  invader. 
Enlistments  for  three  years,  were  finally  succeeded 
by  permanent  engagements  of  service  during  the 
war.  These  forces  were  disbanded  at  the  peace. 
Successive  bands  of  warriors  had  maintained  a  con- 
flict of  seven  years'  duration,  but  Washington  had 
been  the  commander  of  them  all.  His  commission, 
issued  twelve  months  before  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, had  been  commensurate  with  the  war. 
He  was  the  great  military  leader  of  the  cause  ;  and 
so  emphatically  did  he  exemplify  the  position  I  have 
assumed,  that  Providence  prepares  the  characters  of 
men,  adapted  to  the  emergencies  in  which  they  are 
to  be  placed,  that,  were  it  possible  for  the  creative 
power  of  imagination  to  concentrate  in  one  human 
individual  person,  the  cause  of  American  Independ- 
ence, in  all  its  moral  grandeur  and  sublimity,  that 
person  would  be  no  other  than  Washington.  His 
career  of  public  service  was  now  at  an  end.  The 
military  leaders  of  other  ages  had  not  so  terminated 
their  public  lives.  Gustavus  Vasa,  William  of  Or- 
ange, the  Duke  of  Braganza,  from  chieftains  of  pop- 
ular revolt,  had  settled  into  hereditary  rulers  over- 
those  whom  they  had  contributed  to  emancipate. 
The  habit  of  command  takes  root  so  deep  in  the 
human  heart,  that  Washington  is  perhaps  the  only 


21 

example  in  human  annals  of  one  in  which  it  was 
wholly  extirpated.     In  all  other  records  of  humanity, 
the   heroes  of  patriotism  have  sunk  into  hereditary 
Princes.     Glorious  achievements  have  always  claim- 
ed magnificent  rewards.      Washington,   receiving 
from  his  country  the  mandate  to  fight  the  battles  of 
her  freedom,  assumes  the  task  at  once  with  deep 
humility,  and  undaunted  confidence,  disclaiming  in 
advance    all    reward  of  profit,    which    it    might  be 
in    her   power    to    bestow.     After    eight   years    of 
unexampled    perils,   labors,    and   achievements,    the 
warfare  is  accomplished  ;  the  cause  in  which  he  had 
drawn  his  sword,  is  triumphant ;  the  independence 
of  his  country  is  established  ;  her  union  cemented  by 
a  bond  of  confederation,  the  imperfection  of  which 
had  not  yet  been  disclosed  ;   he  comes  to  the  source 
whence  he  first  derived  his  authority,  and,   in  the 
face  of  mankind,  surrenders  the  truncheon  of  com- 
mand, restores  the  commission,  the  object  of  which 
had  been  so  gloriously  accomplished,  and  returns  to 
mingle  with  the  mass  of  his  fellow-citizens,  in  the 
retirement  of  private  life,  and  the  bosom  of  domestic 
felicity. 

Three  years,  from  1783  to  17<S6,  Mr.  Monroe 
continued  a  member  of  the  Confederate  Congress, 
and  had  continual  opportunity  of  observing  the  utter 
inefficiency  of  that  Compact  for  the  preservation  and 
welfare  of  the  Union. 

The  union  of  the  North  American  Colonies,  may 
be  aptly  compared  to  the  poetical  creation  of  the 
world : 

From  Harmony — from  heavenly  Harmony 

This  universal  frame  began  ; 
When  Nature,  underneath  an  heap 


2f 

Of  jarring  atoms  lay, 

And  could  not  heave  her  head — 
The  tuneful  voice  was  heard  from  high 
Arise,  ye  more  than  dead, 
Then  cold  and  hot,  and  moist  and  dry, 

In  order  to  their  stations  leap. 
And  Music's  power  obey. 

Such,  with  more  than  poetical  truth,  was  the  crea- 
tion of  the  American  Union. 

When,  on  the  filth  of  September,  1774,  a  number 
of  the  delegates  chosen  and  appointed  by  the  several 
colonies  and  provinces  in  North  America,  to  meet  and 
hold  a  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  assembled  at  the 
Carpenters'  Hall, — on  that  same  day,  a  new  nation 
was  created  :  then,  indeed,  it  was  but  in  embryo. 
Neither  Independence,  nor  self-government,  nor  per- 
manent confederation,  were  of  the  purposes  for  which 
that  Congress  was  convened.  It  was  to  draw  up 
and  exhibit  statements  of  the  common  grievances  : 
to  consult  and  confer  upon  the  common  violated 
rights ;  to  address  their  fellow-subjects  of  Great 
Britain,  and  of  the  colonies,  with  complaint  of  wrongs 
endured,  and  humbly  to  petition  his  most  excellent 
majesty,  their  most  gracious  sovereign,  for  redress. 
These  purposes  were  performed,  and  totally  failed 
of  success  ;  but  the  Union  was  formed  ;  the  seed  of 
Independence  was  sown ;  and  the  Congress,  after  a 
session  of  seven  weeks,  on  the  twenty-sixth  of  Octo- 
ber, dissolved. 

When  the  second  Congress  met,  on  the  tenth  of 
May,  1775,  the  war  had  already  commenced:  blood 
had  flowed  in  streams  at  Concord  and  Lexington  ; 
and  scarcely  had  they  been  a  month  in  session,  when 
the  fires  of  Charlcstown  ascended  to  an  avenging 


23 

heaven ;  and  Warren  fell  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of 
the  Union  before  that  of  Independence  was  even 
born.  Still,  the  powers  and  instructions  of  the  del- 
egates extended  only  to  concert,  agree  upon,  direct, 
and  order  such  further  measures  as  should,  to  them, 
appear  to  be  best  calculated  for  the  recovery  and 
establishments  of  American  rights  and  liberties,  and 
for  restoring  harmony  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
colonies. 

These  objects  were  pursued  with  steadiness,  per- 
severance, and  sincerity,  till  the  people,  whom  they 
represented,  sickened  at  the  humiliations  to  which 
they  submitted ;  till  insult  heaped  upon  injury,  and 
injury  superadded  to  insult,  aggravated  the  burden 
to  a  point  beyond  endurance  :  the  decree  of  the  peo- 
ple went  forth :  the  whole  people  of  the  United 
Colonies  declared  them  Independent  States :  the 
nation  was  born;  like  the  first  of  the  human  race, 
issuing,  full  grown  and  perfect,  from  the  hands  of 
his  Maker. 

But  while  this  Independence,  thus  declared,  was 
to  be  maintained  by  a  war, — of  the  successful  issue 
to  which,  all  spirit,  but  that  of  heroic  martyrdom, 
might  well  despair, — all  the  institutions  of  organized 
authority  were  to  be  created.  By  an  act  of  primi- 
tive sovereignty,  the  people  of  the  colonies  annihi- 
lated all  the  civil  authorities  by  which  they  had  been 
governed  :  as  one  corporate  body,  they  declared  them- 
selves a  member  of  the  community  of  civilized,  but 
independent,  nations, — acknowledging  the  Christian 
Code  of  natural  and  conventional  laws, — united,  al- 
ready, by  solemn  compact,  but  without  organized 
government,  either  for  the  Union,  or  for  the  separate 


24 

members  ;  also,  corporate  and  associated  bodies,  of 
which  it  was  composed. 

The  position  of  the  people  of  these  colonies  on 
that  dav,  was  indeed  a  new  thine;  under  the  sun. — 
The  nature  and  character  of  the  war,  was  totally 
changed.  Their  relations  individual  and  collective, 
towards  one  another,  towards  the  government  and 
people  of  Great  Britain,  towards  all  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, were  changed  ;  thej  were  men  in  society,  and 
yet  had  reverted  to  the  state  of  nature  ;  they  had  no 
government,  no  fundamental  laws.  Inhabiting  a  ter- 
ritory more  extensive  than  all  Europe,  previously  di- 
vided into  thirteen  communities,  little  sympathizing 
with  one  another,  and  actuated  by  principles  more 
of  mutual  repulsion,  than  attraction,  with  elements 
for  legislation,  not  only  various,  but  hostile  to  each 
other  ;  they  w  ere  called  at  one  and  the  same  time  to 
wage  a  war  of  unparalleled  difficulty  and  danger. — 
To  transfer  their  duties  of  allegiance,  and  their  rights 
of  protection  from  the  Sovereign  of  their  birth  to  the 
new  republic  of  their  own  creation ;  and  to  rebuild 
the  superstructure  of  civil  society,  by  a  complicated 
government,  adequate  to  their  wants ;  a  firm,  com- 
pact and  energetic  whole,  composed  of  thirteen  en- 
tire independent  parts.  The  first  and  most  urgent 
of  their  duties,  because  in  its  nature  it  admitted  of 
no  delay,  was  to  provide  for  the  maintenance  and 
conduct  of  the  war  ;  but  Avith  all  its  difficulties,  that 
was  the  least  arduous  of  their  duties.  To  organize 
the  government  of  a  mighty  empire,  was  a  task, 
which  had  never  before  been  performed  by  man. — 
The  undertaking  formed  an  aera,  in  the  annals  of 
the  human  race ;    an  a^ra  far  surpassing  in  impor- 


tance  all  others  since  the  appearance  of  the  Saviour 
upon  earth. 

There  were  fortunately  a  few  fundamental  princi- 
ples upon  which  there  was  among  the  proclaimers  of 
Independence,  a  perfect  unanimity  of  opinion.  The 
first,  of  these  was  that  the  Union  already  formed  be- 
tween the  Colonies  should  be  permanent — perpetual 
— indissoluble.  The  second,  that  it  should  be  a 
confederated  Union,  of  which  each  Colony  should 
be  an  independent  State.  Self-governed  by  its 
own  municipal  Code — but  of  which  each  citizen, 
should  be  also  a  citizen  of  the  whole.  The  third, 
that  the  whole  confederation,  and  each  of  its  mem- 
bers,  should  be  republican  ;  without  hereditary  mon- 
arch, without  privileged  orders.  On  the  tenth  of 
Ma}^,  preceding  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
Congress  had  passed  a  resolution,  recommending  to 
the  several  Colonies  to  adopt  such  Government  as 
should,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Representatives  of  the 
people,  best  conduce  to  the  happiness  and  safety  of 
their  constituents  in  particular,  and  America  in  gener- 
al; and  in  the  preamble  to  this  Resolution,  adopted  five 
days  later,  they  assigned  as  the  reason  for  it  the  ne- 
cessity that  the  exercise  of  every  kind  of  authority 
under  the  crown  of  Great  Britain,  should  be  totally 
suppressed,  and  all  the  powers  of  Government  exer- 
cised under  the  authority  of  the  people  of  the  colo- 
nies. 

And  on  the  eleventh  of  June,  1776,  the  same  day 
upon  which  the  Committee  was  appointed  to  report 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  was  resolved  to 
appoint  another  Committee  to  prepare  and  digest  the 
form  of  a  confederation  to  be  entered  into  between 
4 


^26 

the  colonies,    and    a  third    committee  to  prepare  a 
plan  of  treaties  to  be  proposed  to  foreign  powers. 

Thus  far,  there  had  been  no  diversity  of  opinion 
among  those,  whose  minds  were  made  up  for  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  The  people  of  each 
colony  were  to  construct  their  own  form  of  Govern- 
ment :  a  form  of  Confederation  was  to  be  prepared 
for  the  whole.  The  history  of  mankind,  ancient 
and  modern,  presented  several  examples  of  confeder- 
ated States,  not  one  of  a  confederated  Government : 
and  even  of  former  confederations  there  was  not  one 
which  extended  over  a  territory  equal  to  that  of  one 
member  of  the  American  Union.  For  a  confederat- 
ed Government,  the  people  of  the  colonies  were  ut- 
terly unprepared.  The  constitutions  of  the  States 
were  formed  without  much  difficulty,  and,  after 
more  than  half  a  century,  although  we  have  witness- 
ed frequent  and  numerous  changes  in  their  organiza- 
tion, there  have  been  scarcely  any  of  important  prin- 
ciple. The  great  features  of  the  political  system 
upon  which  American  Independence  was  declared, 
remain  unchanged — bright  in  immortal  youth.  For 
Union,  for  Independence,  for  self-government,  the 
elements  were  all  at  hand,  and  they  were  homo- 
geneous. There  was  no  seed  of  discord  and  of 
strife  among  them.  For  the  structure  of  the  confed- 
eracy it  was  not  so.  There  was  first  a  general  spirit 
of  distrust  and  jealousy  against  the  investment  of  the 
federal  head  with  power.  There  were  then  local 
and  sectional  prejudices,  interests  and  passions,  tend- 
ing to  reciprocal  discontents  and  enmities.  There 
were  diversities  in  the  tenure  and  character  of  prop- 
erty in  the  different  States,  not  altogether  harmoniz- 


27 

ing  with  the  cause  of  Independence  itself.  There 
were  controversies  of  boundaries  between  many  of  the 
contiguous  colonies,  and  questions  of  deeper  vitality, 
to  whom  the  extra-territorial  lands,  without  the 
bounds  of  the  colonial  charters,  but  within  the  com- 
pass of  the  federative  domain,  would  belong  ?  So 
powerfully  did  these  causes  of  discord  operate,  even 
in  the  midst  of  the  struggle  for  Independence,  that 
nearly  five  years  elapsed  after  the  Declaration,  be- 
fore the  consent  of  the  States  could  be  obtained  to 
the  Articles  of  Confederation. 

This  experiment,  as  is  well  known,  proved  a  total 
failure.  The  Articles  of  Confederation  were  ratified 
by  ten  of  the  States  as  early  as  Jul}',  1778.  Mary- 
land withheld  her  assent  to  them,  until  March,  1781, 
when  it  first  went  into  operation  ;  and  even  then,  one 
of  its  principal  defects  was  so  generally  perceived  and 
foreseen,  that,  on  the  preceding  third  of  February, 
Congress  had  adopted  a  Resolution,  declaring  it  in- 
dispensably necessary  that  they  should  be  vested  with 
a  power  to  levy  an  impost  duty  of  five  per  cent,  to 
pay  the  public  debt.  Even  this  power,  some  of  the 
States  refused  to  grant. 

In  December  1783,  when  Mr.  Monroe  took  his 
seat  in  Congress,  the  first  act  of  that  body  should 
have  been  to  ratify  the  definitive  treaty  of  peace  with 
Great  Britain,  which  had  been  signed  at  Paris  on  the 
preceding  third  of  September.  That  treaty  was 
the  transaction,  which  closed  the  revolutionary  war, 
and  settled  forever  the  question  of  American  Inde- 
pendence. It  was  stipulated,  that  its  ratifications 
should  be  exchanged  within  six  months  from  the  day 
of  its  signature  ;  and  we  can  now  scarcely  believe  it 
possible,  that  but  for  a  mere  accident,  the  faith  of 


28 

the  nation  would  have  been  violated,  and  the  treaty 
itself  cancelled,  lor  want  of  a  power  in  Congress,  to 
l)ass  it  through  the  mere  formalities  of  ratification. 
By  the  articles  of  confederation,  no  treaty  could  be 
concluded,  without  the  assent  of  nine  states. — 
Against  the  Ratification,  there  was  not  a  voice 
throughout  the  union  ;  but  only  seven  states  were 
assembled  in  Congress.  Then  came  a  captious  de- 
bate, whether  the  act  of  ratification  was  a  mere  for- 
mality for  w  hich  seven  States  w^ere  as  competent  as 
nine,  or  whether  it  was  the  very  medullary  substance 
of  a  Treaty,  which,  unless  assented  to  by  nine  States, 
would  be  null  and  void — a  monstrous  and  tyrannical 
usurpation. 

AH  the  powers  of  government,  in  free  countries, 
emanate  from  the  people  :  all  organized  and  opera- 
tive power  exists  by  delegation  from  the  people. 
Upon  these  two  pillars  is  erected  the  whole  fabric 
of  our  freedom.  That  all  exercise  of  organized 
power  should  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  is 
the  first  maxim  of  government ;  and,  in  the  delega- 
tion of  powder  to  the  government,  the  problem  to 
be  solved  is,  the  most  extensive  possible  grant  of 
power  to  be  exercised  for  the  common  good  ;  with 
the  most  effective  possible  guard  against  its  abuse 
to  the  injury  of  any  one.  Our  fathers,  who  formed 
the  confederation,  witnesses  to  the  recent  abuse  of 
organized  power,  and  sufferers  by  it,  mistook  the 
terms  of  the  problem  before  them,  and  thought  that 
the  only  security  against  the  abuse  of  power,  was 
stinginess  of  grant  in  its  organization  :  not  duly  con- 
sidering that  power,  not  delegated,  cannot  be  exer- 
cised for  the  common  good,  and  that  the  denial  of  it, 
to  their  government,  is  equivalent  to  the  abdication 


29 

of  it  bj  themselves.  All  impotence  of  the  govern- 
ment, therefore,  thus  becomes  the  impotence  of  the 
people,  who  fornjed  it;  and,  in  its  result,  places  the 
nation  itself  on  a  footing  of  inferiority,  compared 
with  others  in  the  community  of  independent  nations. 
Nor  did  they  sufficiently  foresee  that  this  excessive 
caution  to  withhold  beneficent  power,  in  the  organic 
frame  of  government,  necessarily  and  unavoidably 
leads  to  usurpation  of  it.  The  Ordinance  for  the 
Government  of  the  north-western  Territory,  was  a 
signal  example  of  this  course  of  things,  under  the 
Articles  of  Confederation.  A  perusal  of  the  journals 
of  Congress,  public  and  secret,  from  the  year  1778, 
when  the  Articles  of  Confederation  were  completed, 
and  partially  adopted,  till  1789,  when  they  were  su- 
perseded by  the  present  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  will  give  the  liveliest  and  most  perfect  idea  of 
the  character  of  the  Confederation,  and  of  the  condi- 
tion of  tlie  Union  under  it.  Among  the  mischievous 
consequences  of  the  inability  of  Congress  to  admin- 
ister the  affairs  of  the  Union,  was  the  waste  of  time 
and  talents,  of  the  most  eminent  patriots  of  the  coun- 
try, in  captious,  irritating,  and  fruitless,  debates. 
The  commerce,  the  public  debt,  the  fiscal  con- 
cerns, the  foreign  relations,  the  public  lands,  the  ob- 
ligations to  the  revolutionary  veterans,  the  inter- 
course of  war  and  peace  with  the  Indian  tribes,  were 
all  subjects  upon  which  the  beneficent  action  of  Con- 
gress was  necessary ;  while,  at  every  step,  and  upon 
every  subject,  they  were  met  by  the  same  insur- 
mountable barrier  of  interdicted  or  undelegated  pow- 
er. Tiiese  observations  may  be  deemed  not  inappro- 
priate to   the  apology  for  Mr.  Mokroe,  and  for  all 


30 

the  distinguished  patriots  associat(;d  with  him,  during 
his  three  years  of  service  in  the  Congress  of  the  Con- 
federation, in  contemplating  the  slender  results  of 
benefit  to  the  public  in  all  the  service,  which  it  was 
possible  for  them,  thus  cramped  and  crippled,  to 
render. 

Within  the  appropriate  sphere  of  action,  however, 
to  which  the  powers  of  Congress  were  competent, 
Mr.  Monroe  took  a  distinguished  part.  That  body 
often  resolved  itself  into  a  Committee  of  the  Whole, 
to  deliberate  upon  an  empty  Treasury,  upon  accumu- 
lating debts,  and  clamorous  creditors ;  upon  m'gent 
recommendations  to  the  State  Legislatures,  which 
some  of  them  would  adopt,  simply,  and  some,  con- 
ditionally; others,  indefinitely  postpone  :  some,  leave 
without  answer  ;  and  others,  sturdily  reject.  This 
Committee  of  the  Whole  referred  every  knotty  sub- 
ject to  a  Select  Committee,  from  whom  they  would, 
in  due  time,  receive  an  able,  and  thoroughly  reasoned, 
Report,  which  they  would  debate  by  paragraphs,  and 
finally  reject  for  some  other  debatable  substitute,  or 
adopt  with  numerous  amendments,  and  after  many  a 
weary  record  of  yeas  and  nays. 

On  the  eighteenth  of  April,  1783,  the  Resolution  of 
Congress  had  passed,  declaring  it  absolutely  neces- 
sary that  they  should  be  vested  with  a  power  to  levy 
an  impost  of  five  per  cent.  On  the  thirtieth  of  April, 
1784,  another  Resolution  was  adopted,  recommend- 
ing to  the  Legislatures  of  the  States  to  grant  to  Con- 
gress the  power  of  regulating  commerce.  And  on 
the  thirteenth  of  July,  1785,  Congress  debated  the 
Report  of  a  Committee,  of  which  Mr.  Monroe  was 
the  Chairman,  combining  the  objects  of  both  those 


31 

prior  Resolutions,  and  proposing  such  alteration  of  tlie 
Articles  of  the  Confederation,  as  was  necessary  to 
vest  Congress  with  the  power,  both  to  regulate  com- 
merce, and  to  levj  an  impost  duty.  These  meas- 
ures were  not  abortive,  inasmuch  as  they  were  pro- 
gressive steps  in  the  march  towards  better  things. 
They  led  first  to  the  partial  convention  of  delegates, 
from  five  States,  at  Annapolis,  in  September,  178G  ; 
and  then  to  the  general  convention,  at  Philadelphia, 
in  1787,  which  prepared  and  proposed  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  Whoever  contributed  to 
that  event,  is  justly  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  the 
present  age,  as  a  public  benefactor ;  and  among 
them,  the  name  of  Monroe  should  be  conspicuously 
enrolled. 

Among  the  very  few  powers,  which,  by  the  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation,  had  been  vested  in  Congress, 
was  that  of  constituting  a  Court  of  Commissioners, 
selected  from  its  own  body,  to  decide  upon  any  dis- 
puted question  of  boundary,  jurisdiction,  or  any  other 
cause  whatever,  between  any  two  States  in  the 
Union.  These  Commissioners  were,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, to  be  chosen,  with  mutual  consent,  by  the 
agents  of  the  two  States,  parties  to  the  controversy  ; 
the  final  determination  of  which,  was  submitted  to 
them. 

Such  a  controversy  had  taken  place  between  ihe 
States  of  Massachusetts  and  New- York,  the  agents 
of  which,  attending  in  Congress  in  December,  1784, 
agreed  upon  nine  persons,  to  constitute  the  federal 
court,  to  decide  the  question  between  the  parties. 
Of  these  nine  persons,  James  Monroe  was  one  :  a 
distinction,  in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  his  age,  indi- 


32 

rating  the  high  estimation  in  which  he  was  already 
held  throughout  the  Union.  The  subsequent  history 
of"  this  controversy,  to  its  final  and  friendly  settle- 
ment, alTords  an  illustration  coinciding  with  number- 
less others  of  the  imbecility  of  the  confederacy.  On 
the  twenty-first  of  March,  1785,  Congress  were  in- 
formed, by.  a  letter  from  Mr.  Monroe,  that  he  ac- 
cepted the  appointment  of  one  of  the  judges  of  the 
federal  Court,  to  decide  the  controversy.  On  the 
ninth  of  June  following,  the  agents,  from  the  con- 
tending States  reported  to  Congress,  that  they  had 
agreed  upon  three  persons,  whom  they  named,  as 
Judges  of  the  federal  Court,  instead  of  three  of  those 
who  had  been  appointed,  the  preceding  December, 
but  had  declined  accepting  their  appointment :  and 
the  agents  requested  that  a  commission  might  be 
issued  to  the  Court,  as  finally  constituted,  to  meet  at 
Williamsburg,  in  Virginia,  on  the  third  Tuesday  of 
November,  then  next,  to  hear  and  determine  the 
controversy. 

On  the  second  of  November,  of  the  same  year,  a 
representation  w^as  made  by  the  agents  of  the  two 
States,  to  Congress,  that  such  had  been  the  difficul- 
ties and  delays,  in  obtaining  answers  from  several  of 
the  judges,  that  the  parties  were  left  in  suspense, 
even  to  that  hour ;  a  hearing  had  thus  been  prevent- 
ed, and  further  procrastination  was  unavoidable. 
They  petitioned,  therefore,  that  the  hearing  should 
be  remitted  to  such  a  day  as  the  parties  should  agree 
upon,  and  thereafter  certify  to  Congress — and  a  Re- 
solution passed  accordingly. 

On  the  fifteenth  of  May,   1786,  a  letter  was  re- 
ceived by  Congress,  from  Mr.  Monroe,  informing 


3S 

them  that  some  circumstances  would  put  it  out  of  his 
power  to  act  as  a  Judge  for  the  decision  of  this  con- 
troversy, and  resigning  his  commission. 

On  the  twenty-seventh  of  September  following, 
Congress  were  informed  by  the  agents  of  the  parties, 
that  they  had  agreed  upon  a  person  to  be  a  judge, 
in  the  place  of  Mr.  Monroe,  and  they  requested  that 
a  new  commission  might  be  issued  to  the  Court. — 
The  Court  never  met,  for  on  the  sixteenth  of  De- 
comber,  1786,  the  litigating  parties,  by  their  respect- 
ive agents,  at  Hartford,  in  Connecticut,  settled  the 
controversy,  by  agreement,  between  themselves,  and 
to  their  mutual  satisfaction.  Of  this,  the  agents  gave 
notice  to  Congress,  on  the  eighth  of  October,  1787, 
and  they  moved,  that  the  attested  copy  of  the  agree- 
ment, between  the  two  States,  which  they  laid  be- 
fore Congress,  should  be  filed  in  the  Secretary's 
office — which  was  refused  :  that  body  declining  even 
to  keep  upon  their  files  the  evidence  of  an  accord, 
between  two  members  of  the  Union,  concluded  oth- 
erwise than  as  the  Articles  of  Confederation  had 
prescribed. 

Mr.  Monroe  did  not  assign,  in  his  letter  to  Con- 
gress, his  reasons  for  resigning  the  trust  which  he 
had  previously  consented  to  assume.  They  were, 
probably,  motives  of  delicacy,  highly  creditable  to 
his  character  :  motives,  flowing  from  a  source 

"  Beyond  tlie  fix'd  and  settled  rules 
"  Of  vice  and  virtue  in  the  schools  :" 

motives,  emanating  from  a  deep  and  conscientious 
morality,  of  \\  hich  men  of  coarser  minds  are  denied 
the  perception,  and  which,  while  exerting  unresisted 
5 


sway  over  the  conduct  actuated  by  thcni,  retire  into 
the  self-conviction  of  their  own  purity.  Between 
the  period,  when  Mr.  Monroe  had  accepted,  and 
that  wlien  he  withdrew^  from  the  office  of  ajudge  be- 
tween tlie  States  of  Massachusetts  and  New^-York, 
discussions  had  arisen,  in  Congress,  relating  to  a  ne- 
gotiation with  Spain,  in  the  progress  of  which,  vary- 
ing views  of  public  policy  were  sharpened  and  stim- 
ulated, by  varying  sectional  interests,  to  a  point  of 
painful  collision. 

After  the  conclusion  of  the  general  peace  at  Paris, 
in  1783,  Spain,  then  a  feeble  and  superannuated 
monarchy,  governed  by  corrupt,  profligate,  and  per- 
fidious councils,  possessed  with  other  colonies  of  stu- 
pendous territorial  extent,  the  mouths  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  both  the  shores  of  that  father  of  the  floods, 
from  his  first  entrance  into  this  continent,  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  inland.  Above  the  thirtv-first  de- 
gree  of  latitude,  the  territorial  settlements  of  the 
United  States  were  spreading  in  their  incipient  but 
gigantic  infancy,  along  his  eastern  banks  and  on  both 
shores  of  the  mighty  rivers,  which  contribute  to  his 
stream.  Spain,  by  virtue  of  a  conventional,  long 
settled,  but  abusive  principle,  of  international  law, 
disavowed  by  the  law  of  nature,  interdicted  the 
downward  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  bor- 
derers upon  the  shores,  above  her  line  ;  on  the  bare 
plea  that  both  sides  of  the  river  were  within  her  do- 
main at  the  mouth.  And  well  knowing  that  the  nav- 
igation was  equivalent  almost  to  a  necessary  of  life 
to  the  American  settlers  above,  she  formed  the  pro- 
ject at  once  of  dallying  negotiation  with  the  new 
American  Republic,  to  purchase  by  some  commercial 


35 

privilege,  her  assent  to  a  temporary  exclusion  from 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  and  of  tampering 
with  the  same  American  settlers,  to  seduce  them 
from  their  allegiance  to  their  own  country,  by  the 
prospect  of  enjoying  under  her  dominion  as  Spanish 
subjects,  the  navigation  of  the  river,  from  which  they 
were  excluded  as  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  collision  between  the  claim  of  the  United 
States  of  right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  by  the  laws 
of  nature,  and  the  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Brit- 
ain, and  the  actual  interdiction  of  that  navigation  by 
Spain,  founded  upon  the  usages  of  nations,  hostilities 
between  the  two  nations  had  already  taken  place. 
A  citizen  of  the  United  States,  descending  the  Mis- 
sissippi, had  been  seized,  and  imprisoned  at  Natehez  ; 
and  a  retaliatory  seizure  of  the  Spanish  post  at  Vin- 
cennes  had  been  effected  by  citizens  of  the  Uni- 
ted States.  According  to  all  appearances,  an  imme- 
diate war  with  Sjiain,  for  the  navigation  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, or  a  compromise  of  the  question  by  negotia- 
tion, was  the  only  alternative,  which  Congress  had 
before  them,  and  here  again  appeared  a  melancholy 
manifestation  of  the  imbecility  of  the  Union  under  the 
Articles  of  Confederation. 

A  diplomatic  agent  of  the  lowest  order,  under  the 
title  of  Encargardo  de  Negocios,  had  been  appointed 
by  the  king  of  Spain  to  reside  in  the  United  States, 
and  had  been  with  much  formality  received  by  Con- 
gress, in  July,  1785.  Though  possessed  of  full  pow- 
ers to  conclude  a  treaty,  he  had  not  the  rank  of  a 
Minister  Plenipotentiary,  and  his  title,  otherwise  un- 
exampled in  European  diplomacy,  was  significant  of 
the  estimation  in  which  his   Catholic  Majesty  held 


36 

the  new  American  Republic.  Immediately  after  his 
reception,  the  Secretary  of  Congress  for  Foreign 
Aftairs,  John  Jay,  of  New  York,  was  commissioned 
to  negotiate  with  tlie  Spanish  Encargardo ;  Ijiit  in- 
structed, previously  to  his  making  propositions  to  the 
Spaniard,  or  agreeing  with  him  on  any  article,  com- 
pact, or  convention,  to  communicate  the  same  to  Con- 
gress. On  the  25th  of  August  ensuing,  this  instruc- 
tion was  repealed,  and  another  substituted  in  its 
place,  directing  him,  in  his  plan  of  treaty,  particular- 
ly to  stipulate  the  right  of  the  United  States  to  their 
territorial  bounds  and  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, from  the  source  to  the  ocean,  as  established 
in  their  treaties  with  Great  Britain  ;  and  to  conclude 
no  treaty,  compact,  or  convention  with  Mr.  Gardoqui, 
without  previously  communicating  it  to  Congress, 
and  receiving  their  approbation. 

The  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  soon  proved  an 
insurmountable  bar,  to  the  prpgress  of  the  negocia- 
tion.  It  was,  de  facto,  interdicted  by  Spain.  The 
right  to  it  could  be  enforced  only  by  war,  and  vio- 
lence on  both  sides  had  already  taken  place.  Spain 
denied  the  right  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  as  pertinaciously,  and  in 
as  lofty  a  tone  as  Great  Britain,  denies  to  us,  on  the 
same  pretence,  to  this  day,  the  right  of  navigating 
the  St.  Lawrence.  After  many  ineffectual  confer- 
ences with  the  Spanish  negociator,  the  Secretary  of 
Foreign  Affairs  requested  further  instructions  from 
Congress,  and  in  a  personal  address  to  that  body, 
recommended  to  them  a  compromise  with  Spain,  by 
the  proposal  of  a  commercial  treaty,  in  which,  for  an 
adequate  equivalent  of  commercial  advantages  to  the 


37 

United  States,  tliey,  without  renouncing  the  right  to 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  should  stipulate  a 
forbearance  of  the  exercise  of  that  right  for  a  term  of 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  to  w^hich  the  duration  of 
the  treaty  should  be  limited. 

This  proposal  excited  the  most  acrimonious  and 
irritated  struggle  between  the  delegations  from  the 
northern  and  southern  divisions  of  the  Unioji,  which 
had  ever  occurred.  The  representation  from  the 
seven  northern  states,  unanimously  agreeing  to  au- 
thorize the  stipulation  recommended  by  the  Secreta- 
ry, and  the  five  southern  states,  with  the  exception 
of  one  member,  being  equally  earnest  for  rejecting  it. 
The  state  of  Delaware  was  not  then  represented. 
In  the  animated  and  passionate  debates,  on  a  series 
of  questions  originating  in  this  inauspicious  contro- 
versy, the  delegates  from  Massachusetts,  and  among 
them  especially  Rufus  King,  took  a  warm  and  distin- 
guished part  ill  favour  of  the  proposition  of  the  Sec- 
retary, while  the  opposition  to  it,  was  maintained 
with  an  earnestness  equally  intense,  and  with  ability 
not  less  powerful,  by  the  delegation  from  Virginia, 
and  among  them,  pre-eminently,  by  Mr.  Monroe. 
In  reviewing,  at  this  distance  of  time,  the  whole  sub- 
ject, a  candid  and  impartial  observer  cannot  fail  to 
perceive  that  much  of  the  bitterness  which  mingled 
itself  unavoidably  in  the  contest,  arose  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  confederacy,  and  the  predominant  obliga- 
tion under  which  each  delegate  felt  himself  to  main- 
tain the  interests  of  his  own  state  and  section  of  the 
Union.  The  adverse  interests  and  opposite  views  of 
policy  brought  into  conflict  by  these  transactions,  pro- 
duced a  coldness  and  mutual  alienation  between  the 


38 

noithcm  and  southern  divisions  of  the  Union  which 
is  not  extinguished  to  this  day.  It  gave  rise  to  rank- 
ling jealousies  and  festering  prejudices,  not  only  of 
the  north  and  south  against  each  other,  but  of  each 
section  against  the  ablest  and  most  virtuous  patriots 
of  the  other.  As  by  the  articles  of  confederation,  no 
treaty  could  be  concluded  but  with  the  concurrence 
of  nine  states,  the  authority  to  make  the  proposal 
recommended  by  the  Secretary  was  not  given.  The 
negociation  with  Spain  was  transferred  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  as  organized  by  the 
present  National  Constitution.  The  right  of  navi- 
gating the  Mississippi  from  its  source  to  the  ocean, 
w^ith  a  deposit  at  New  Orleans,  was  within  seven 
years  thereafter,  conceded  to  the  United  States  by 
Spain,  in  a  solemn  treaty,  and  within  twenty  years 
from  the  negociation  Avith  the  Encargardo,  the  Mis- 
sissippi himself  with  all  his  waters  and  all  his  shores, 
had  passed  from  the  dominion  of  Spain,  and  become 
part  of  the  United  States. 

In  all  the  proceedings,  relating  to  the  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi,  from  the  reception  of  Mr.  Gardo- 
qui,  till  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  and  its  annexation 
to  the  United  States,  the  agency  of  Mr.  Monroe 
was  conspicuous  above  all  others.  He  took  the  lead 
in  the  opposition  to  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Jay. 
He  signed,  in  conjunction,  with  another  eminent  cit- 
izen of  the  State  of  New- York,  Robert  R.  Livingston, 
the  Treaty  which  gave  us  Louisiana :  and,  during 
his  administration,  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
the  cession  of  the  Floridas  was  consummated.  His 
system  of  policy,  relating  to  this  great  interest,  was 
ultimately  crowned  with  complete   success.     That 


39 

which  he  opposed,  might  have  severed  or  dismem- 
bered the  Union.  Far  be  it  from  me  ;  far,  I  know, 
would  it  be  from  the  heart  of  Mr.  Monroe  himself, 
to  speak  it,  in  censure  of  those  illustrious  statesmen, 
who,  in  the  infancy  of  the  nation,  and  in  the  help- 
lessness of  the  Confederation,  preferred  a  temporary 
forbearance  of  a  merely  potential  and  interdicted 
right,  to  the  apparent  and  imminent  prospect  of  una- 
voidable war.  Let  those  who  would  censure  them 
look  to  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  and  to  the 
honest  partialities  of  their  own  bosoms,  and  then  ex- 
tend to  the  memory  of  those  deceased  benefactors  of 
their  country  that  candour,  in  the  construction  of  con- 
duct and  imputation  of  motives,  which  they  will 
hereafter  assuredly  need,  themselves.     -       ' 

It  was  in  the  heat  of  the  temper,  kindled  by  this 
cause  of  discord,  in  the  federal  councils,  that  Mr. 
Monroe  resigned  his  commission,  as  a  judge  between 
the  states  of  Massachusetts  and  New-York.  The  opin- 
ions of  both  those  states,  indeed  coincided  together, 
in  variance  from  that  which  he  entertained  upon  the 
absorbing  interest  of  the  right  to  navigate  the  Mis- 
sissippi. But  he  beheld  their  countenance — "  that 
it  was  not  toward  him  as  before."  He  felt  there 
was  no  longer  the  same  confidence  in  the  dispositions 
of  north  and  south  to  each  other,  which  had  existed 
when  the  selection  of  him  had  been  made  ;  and  he 
withdrew  from  the  invidious  duty  of  deciding  be- 
tween parties,  with  either  of  whom  he  no  longer  en- 
joyed the  satisfaction  of  a  cordial  harmony. 

By  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  no  delegate  in 
Congress,  was  eligible  to  serve  more  than  three 
years  in  six.     Toward  the  close  of  1786,  the  term  of 


40 

Mr.  Monroe's  service,  in  that  capacity,  expired. 
During  that  term,  and  while  Congress  were  in  ses- 
sion at  New  York,  lie  formed  a  matrimonial  connex- 
ion with  Miss  Kortright,  daughter  of  Mr.  L.  Kort- 
right,  of  an  ancient  and  respectable  family  of  that 
state.  This  lady,  of  w^hose  personal  attractions  and 
accomplishments,  it  were  impossible  to  speak  in 
terms  of  exaggeration,  was,  for  a  period  little  short  of 
half  a  century,  the  cherished  and  affectionate  partner 
of  his  life  and  fortunes.  She  accompanied  him  in  all 
his  journeyings  through  this  world  of  care,  from 
which,  by  the  dispensation  of  Providence,  she  had 
been  removed  only  a  few  months  before  himself. 
The  companion  of  his  youth  was  the  solace  of  his 
declining  years,  and  to  the  close  of  life  enjoyed  the 
testimonial  of  his  affection,  that  with  the  external 
beauty  and  elegance  of  deportment,  conspicuous  to 
all  who  w^ere  honoured  with  her  acquaintance,  she 
united  the  more-  precious  and  endearing  qualities 
which  mark  the  fulfilment  of  all  the  social  duties, 
and  adorn  with  grace,  and  fill  with  enjoyment,  the 
tender  relations  of  domestic  life. 

After  his  retirement  from  service  in  the  Confeder- 
ation Congress,  assuming,  with  a  view  to  practice  at 
the  bar,  a  temporary  residence  at  Fredericksburg,  he 
was  almost  immediately  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Le- 
gislature of  Virginia ;  and  the  ensuing  year,  to  the 
Convention,  summoned,  in  that  Commonwealth,  to 
discuss  and  decide  upon  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States. 

Mr.  Monroe  was  deeply  penetrated  with  the  con- 
viction that  a  great  and  radical  change,  in  the  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation,  was  indispensable,  even  for  the 


41 

preservation  of  the  Union.     But,  in  common  with 
Patrick  Henry,  George  Mason,  and  many  other  pa- 
triarchs of  the   Revolution,    his  mind  was  not   al- 
together prepared  for  that  which  was,  in  truth,   a 
revolution,   far  greater  than   the   severance    of  the 
United   American   Colonies   from   Great  Britain :   a 
revolution  accomplishing  that  which  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  had  only  conceived  and  proclaimed  : 
substituting  a  Constitution  of  Government  for  a  peo- 
])le,  instead  of  a  mere  Confederation  of  States.     So 
great  and  momentous  was  this  change,  so  powerful 
the  mass  of  patriotism  mid  wisdom,  as  well  as  of  in- 
terest, prejudice,  and  ])assion,  arrayed  against  it,  that 
we  should  hazard  little,  in  considering  the  final  adop- 
tion and  establishment  of  the   Constitution,  ns   the 
greatest  triumph  of  pure  and  peaceful  intellect,  re- 
corded  in   tlie   annals  of  the  human  race.     By  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  people  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  had  assumed  and  announced  to  the  world 
their   united  personality  as  a  Nation,  consisting  of 
thirteen  Independent  States.     They  had  thereby  as- 
sumed  the   exercise   of  primitive   sovereign  power : 
that  is  to  say,  the  sovereignty  of  the  people.     The 
administrative  power  of  such  a  people,  could,  how- 
ever, be  exercised  only  by  delegation.     Their  first 
attem})t  was  to  exercise  it  by  confining  the  powers 
oi' government,  to  the  separate  members  of  the  Union, 
and  delegating  only  the  powers  of  a  confederacy  to 
the  collective  body.     This  experiment  was  deliber- 
ately and  thoroughly  made  and  totallv  failed.      In 
other  ages  and  other  climes  the  consequences  of  that 
failure  would  have  been  anarchy :    complicated  and 
long  continued  wars  :    perhaps,  ultimately,  one  con- 
solidated military  monarchy — elective  or  hereditary  : 
G 


42 

perhaps  two  or  three  confederacies — always  militant ; 
with  border  wars,  occasionally  intermitted,  with  bar- 
rier treaties,  impregnable  fortresses,  rivers  hermet- 
ically sealed,  and  the  close  sea  of  a  Pacific  Ocean. 
One  Standing  Army  would  have  bred  its  antagonist, 
and  between  them  they  would  have  engendered  a 
third,  to  sit  like  chaos  at  the  gates  of  Hell, 

"  tJmpire  of  the  strife. 
And,  by  decision,  more  embroil  the  fray." 

Not  so,  did  the  people  of  the  North  American  Un- 
ion. They  adhered  to  their  first  experiment  of 
Confederacy,  till  it  was  falling  to  pieces,  in  its  im- 
medicable weakness.  After  frequent,  long  and  patient 
ineffectual  struggles,  to  sustain,  and  strengthen  it,  a 
small  and  select  body  of  them,  by  authority  of  a  few 
of  the  State  Legislatures,  convened  together  to  con- 
fer upon  the  evils,  which  the  country  was  suffering, 
and  to  consult  upon  the  remedy  to  be  proposed. 
This  body  advised  the  Assembly  of  a  Convention,  in 
which  all  the  States  should  be  represented.  Eleven 
of  them  did  so  assemble,  with  Washington  at  their 
head ;  with  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamilton,  King, 
Langdon,  Sherman,  John  Rutledge,  and  compeers  of 
fame,  scarcely  less  resplendent,  for  members.  They 
immediately  perceived  that  the  Union,  and  a  mere 
Confederacy,  were  incompatible  things.  They  pro- 
posed, prepared,  and  presented,  for  acceptance,  a 
Constitution  of  Government  for  the  whole  people  :  a 
plan,  retaining  so  much  of  the  federative  character, 
as  to  preserve,  unimpaired,  the  independent  and 
wholesome  action  of  the  separate  State  Govern- 
ments ;  and  infusing  into  the  whole  body  the  vital 
energy  necessary  for  free  and  efficient  action  upon 


all  subjects  of  common  interest  and  national  concern- 
ment. This  plan  Avas  then  submitted  to  the  exam- 
ination, scrutiny,  and  final  Judgment,  of  the  people, 
assembled  by  Representative  Conventions,  in  every 
State  of  the  Confederacy.  To  the  small  portion  of 
my  auditory,  whose  memory  can  retrace  the  path  of 
time  back  to  that  eventful  period,  I  appeal  for  the 
firm  belief  that,  when  that  plan  was  first  exhibited  to 
the  solemn  consideration  of  the  people,  though  pre- 
sented by  a  body  of  men,  enjoying  a  mass  of  public 
confidence,  far  greater  than  any  other,  of  equal  num- 
bers, then  living,  could  have  possessed,  it  was  yet, 
by  a  considerable,  not  to  say  a  large  numerical,  ma- 
jority, of  the  whole  people,  sincerely,  honestly,  and 
heartily,  disapproved.  It  was  disapproved,  not  only 
by  all  those  who  perseveringly  adhered  to  the  rejec- 
tion of  it,  but  by  great  numbers  of  those  who  reluc- 
tantly voted  for  accepting  it ;  considering  it  then  as 
the  only  alternative  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union : 
and,  of  those  w  ho  voted  for  it,  of  its  most  ardent  and 
anxious  supporters,  it  may,  w  ith  equal  confidence,  be 
affirmed,  that  no  one  ever  permitted  his  imagination 
to  anticipate,  or  his  hopes  to  conceive  the  extent  of 
the  contrast  in  the  condition  of  the  North  American 
people,  under  that  new  social  compact,  with  what  it 
had  been  under  the  Confederation  which  it  was  to  su- 
persede. 

It  was,  doubtless,  among  the  dispensations  of  a 
wise  and  beneficent  Providence,  that  the  severe  and 
pertinacious  investigation  of  this  Constitution,  as  a 
whole,  and  in  all  its  minutest  parts,  by  the  Conven- 
tions of  all  the  States,  and  in  the  admirable  papers 
of  the  Federalist,  should  precede  its  adoption  and  es- 


44 

tablishment.  It  may  be  truly  said  to  have  passed 
through  au  ordeal  of  more  than  burning  plouglishares. 
Never,  in  the  action  of  a  whole  people,  was  obtained 
so  signal  a  triumph  of  cool  and  deliberate  judgment, 
over  ardent  feeling,  and  honest  prejudices  :  and  nev- 
er was  a  people  more  signally  rewarded  for  so  splen- 
did an  example  of  popular  self-controul. 

That  Mr.  Monroe,  then,  was  one  of  those  enlight- 
ened, faithful,  and  virtuous  patriots,  who  opposed  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  can  no  more  detract 
from  the  eminence  of  his  talents,  or  the  soundness 
of  his  ])rinciples,  than  the  project  for  the  tempo- 
rary abandonment  of  the  right  to  navigate  the  Mis- 
sissippi, can  impair  those  of  the  eminent  citizens  of 
New- York  and  Massachusetts,  by  whom  that  meas- 
ure was  proposed.  During  a  Statesman's  life,  an 
estimate  of  his  motives  will  necessarily  mingle  itself 
with  every  judgment  u])on  his  conduct,  and  that  judg- 
ment will  often  be  swayed  more  by  the  concurring 
or  adverse  passions  of  the  observer,  than  by  reason, 
or  even  by  the  merits  of  the  cause.  Candour,  in  the 
estimate  of  motives,  is  rarely  the  virtue  of  an  adver- 
sary ;  but  it  is  an  indispensable  duty  before  the  de- 
finitive tribunal  of  posthumous  renown. 

When  in  the  legislature  of  Virginia,  the  question 
was  discussed  upon  calling  a  State  Convention  to 
decide  upon  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
Mr.  Monroe  took  no  part  in  the  debate.  He  then 
doubted  of  the  course  which  it  would  be  most  advis- 
able to  pursue.  Whether  to  adopt  the  Constitution 
in  the  hope  that  certain  amendments  which  he  deem- 
ed necessary,  would  afterwards  be  obtained,  or  to 
suspend  the  decision  upon  the  Constitution  itself,  un- 


45 

til  those  amendments  should  have  been  secured. 
When  elected  to  the  Convention,  he  expressed  those 
doubts  to  his  constituents  assembled  at  the  polls  ;  but 
his  opinion,  having  afterwards  and  before  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Convention,  settled  into  a  conviction,  that 
the  amendments  should  precede  the  acceptance  of 
the  Constitution,  he  addressed  to  his  constituents  a 
letter,  stating  his  objections  to  that  instrument, 
which  letter  was  imperfectly  printed,  and  copies  of 
it  were  sent  by  him  to  several  distinguished  charac- 
ters, among  whom  were  Gen.  Washington,  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson, and  Mr.  Madison,  who  viewed  it  with  liberal- 
ity and  candour. 

In  the  Convention,  Mr.  Monroe  took  part  in  the 
debate,  and  in  one  of  his  speeches  entered  fully  into 
the  merits  of  the  subject.  He  was  decidedly  for  a 
change,  and  a  very  important  one,  in  the  then  exist- 
ing system  ;  but  the  Constitution  re])orted,  had  in  his 
opinion  defects  requiring  amendment,  which  should 
be  made  before  its  adoption. 

The  Convention,  however,  by  a  majority  of  less 
than  ten  votes  of  one  hundred  and  seventy,  resolved 
to  adopt  the  Constitution,  with  a  proposal  of  amend- 
ments to  be  engrafted  upon  it.  Such  too,  was  the 
definitive  conclusion  in  all  the  other  states,  although 
two  of  them  lingered  one  or  tw  o  years  after  it  was 
in  full  operation  by  authority  of  all  the  rest,  before 
their  acquiescence  in  the  decision. 

By  the  course  which  Mr.  Monroe  had  pursued  on 
this  great  occasion,  although  it  left  him  for  a  short 
time  in  the  minority,  yet  he  lost  not  the  confidence 
either  of  the  people,  or  of  the  Legislature  of  Virginia. 
At  the  organization  of  the  government  of  the  United 


46 

States,  the  first  senators  from  that  state,  were  Rich- 
ard Henry  Lee,  and  William  Grayson.  The  decease 
of  the  latter  in  December  1789,  made  a  vacancy 
which  was  immediately  supplied  by  the  election  of 
Mr.  Monroe  ;  and  in  that  capacity  he  served  until 
May,  1794,  when  he  was  appointed,  at  the  nomina- 
tion of  President  ^Washinj^jton,  Minister  Plenipoten- 
tiary to  the  Republic  of  France. 

The  two  great  parties  which  so  long  divided  the 
feelings  and  the  councils  of  our  common  country,  un- 
der the  denominations  of  Federal  and  Anti-federal, 
originated  with  the  Union.  The  Union  itself  had 
been  formed  by  the  impulse  of  an  attraction  irresisti- 
ble as  the  adamant  of  the  magnet  and  scarcely  less 
mystical.  It  was  an  union  however  of  subject  colo- 
nies, then  making  no  claim  or  pretension  to  sovereign 
power.  But  from  the  hour  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, it  became  necessary  to  provide  for  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Union  and  to  organize  the  admin- 
istration of  its  affairs.  The  extent  of  power  to  be 
conferred  on  the  representative  body  of  the  Union, 
became  from  that  instant  an  object  of  primary  magni- 
tude, dividing  opinions  and  feelings.  Union  was  de- 
sired by  all — but  many  were  averse  even  to  a  confed- 
eracy. They  would  have  had  a  league  or  alliance, 
offensive  and  defensive,  but  not  even  a  permanent 
confederacy  or  Congress.  It  was  the  party  which 
anxiously  urged  the  adoption  of  the  Articles  of  Con- 
federation, who  thereby  acquired  the  appellation  of 
Federalists,  as  their  adversaries  were  known  by  the 
name  of  Anti-federalists.  To  shew  the  influence  of 
names  over  things,  we  may  remark  that  when  the 
Constitution  of  the   United   States  was  debated,  it 


47 

formed  the  first  great  and  direct  issue  between  the 
parties,  which  retained  their  names,  but  had  in  real- 
ity completely  changed  sides.     The  Federalists  of 
the  Confederacy  had  abandoned  that  sinking  ship. 
They  might  then  with  much  more  propriety  have  been 
called  Nationalists.     The  real  Federalists  were  the 
opposers  of  the  Constitution  ;  for  they  adhered  to  the 
principle,  and  most  of  them  would  have  been  willing 
to  amend  the   Articles  of  Confederation.     This  in- 
congruity of  name  shortly  afterwards  became  so  glar- 
ing, that  the  Anti-federalists  laid  theirs  aside,   and 
assumed  the   name    sometimes  of  Republicans   and 
sometimes  of  Democrats.    The  name  of  Republicans 
is  not  a  suitable  denomination  of  a  party  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  because  it  implies  an  offensive  and  unjust 
imputation  upon  their  op})onents,  as  if  they  were  not 
also  Republicans.      The  truth  is,  as  it  was  declared 
by  Thomas  Jefferson,  all  are,   and  all  from  the  De- 
claration of  Independence  have  been,  Republicans. 
Speculative  opinions  in  favour  of  a  more  energetic 
government  on  one  side,  and   of  a  broader   range  of 
Democratic  rule  on  the  other,  have  doubtless   been 
entertained  by  individuals,  but  both  parties  have  been 
disposed  to  exercise  tlie  full  measure  of  their  author- 
ity when  in  power,  and  both  have  been  equallj^  re- 
fractory to  the  mandates  of  authority  when  out.      In 
the  primitive  principles  of  the  parties,  the  Federalists 
were  disposed  to  consider  the  first  principle  of  Soci- 
ety to  be  the  preservation  of  order ;    while  their  op- 
ponents viewed  the  benefit  above  all  others  in  the  en- 
joyment   of   liberty.     The     first    explosion    of  the 
French  Revolution,   was  cotemporaneous  with   the 
first  organization  of  the   government  of  the  United 


48 

States  ;  and  France  and  Great  Britain  were  shortly 
afterwards  involved  in  a  war  of  unparalleled  violence 
and  fury.  It  was  a  war  of  opinions  ;   in  which  France 
assumed  the  attitude  of  champion  for  freedom,  and 
Britain  that  of  social  order  throughout  the  civilized 
world.     While  under  these  pretences,  all  sense  of  jus- 
tice was  banished  from  the  councils   and  conduct  of 
both  ;  and  both  gave  loose  to  the  frenzy  of  boundless 
ambition,  rapacity,  and  national  hatred  and  revenge. 
The  foundations  of  the  great  deep  were  broken  up. 
The    two    elementary  principles   of  human  society 
were  arrayed  in  conflict  with  each  other,  and  not  yet, 
not  at  this  hour  is  that  warfare  accomplished.     Free- 
dom and  order  were  also  the  elementary  principles  of 
the  two  parties  in  the  American  Union,  and  as  they 
respectively  predominated,  each  party   sympathized 
with  one  or  the  other  of  the  great  European  combat- 
ants.    And  thus  the  party  movements  in  our  own 
country  became  complicated  with  the  sweeping  hur- 
ricane of  European  politics  and  wars.     The  division 
was  deeply  seated  in  the  cabinet  of  Washington.     It 
separated  his  two  principal  advisers,  and  he  endeav- 
oured without  success,  to  hold  an  even  balance  be- 
tween them.  .  It  pervaded  the  councils  of  the  Union, 
the  two  Houses  of  Congress,  the  Legislatures  of  the 
States,  and  the  people  throughout  the  land.   The  first 
partialities  of  the  nation  were  in  favour  of  France  ; 
prompted  both  by  the  remembrances  of  the  recent 
war  for  American  Independence,  and  by  the  impres- 
sion then  almost  universal,  that  her  cause  was  iden- 
tified with  that  which  had  so  lately  been  our  own. 
But  when  Revolutionary  France  became  one  great 
army ;  when  the  first  commentary  upon  her  procla-r 


49 

mations  of  freedom,  and  her  disclaimer  of  conquest, 
was  the  annexation  of  Belgium  to  her  territories  ; 
when  the  blood  of  her  fallen  monarch  was  but  a 
drop  of  the  fountains  that  spouted  from  her  scaffolds, 
when  the  goddess  of  liberty,  in  her  solemn  proces- 
sions, was  a  prostitute  ;  when  open  atheism  was 
avowed  and  argued  in  her  hall  of  legislation,  and  the 
existence  of  an  Omnipotent  God,  was  among  the 
Decrees  of  her  National  Convention,  then  horror 
and  disgust  took  the  place  of  admiration  and  hope  in 
the  minds  of  the  American  Federalists.  Then 
France  became  to  them  an  object  of  terror  and  dis- 
may, and  Britain,  as  her  great  and  stedfast  antag- 
onist, the  solitary  anchor  of  their  hope — the  venerat- 
ed bulwark  of  their  religion. 

At  the  threshold  of  tlie  war,  Washington,  not 
without  a  sharp  and  portentous  struggle  in  his  cabi- 
net, followed  by  sympathetic  and  convulsive  throes, 
throughout  the  Union,  issued  a  Proclamation  of 
Neutrality.  Neutrality  was  the  policy  of  his  admin- 
istration, but  neutrality  was  not  in  the  heart  of  any 
portion  of  the  American  people.  They  had  taken 
their  sides,  and  the  Repul)licans  and  the  Federalists 
had  now  become,  each  at  least  in  the  view  of  the 
other,  a  French  and  a  British  Miction. 

Nor  was  the  neutrality  of  AVashington  more  re- 
spected by  the  combatants  in  Europe,  than  it  was 
congenial  to  the  feelings  of  his  countrymen.  The 
champion  oi  freedom  and  the  champion  of  order  were 
alike  regardless  of  the  rights  of  others.  They 
trampled  upon  all  neutrality  from  the  outset.  The 
press-gang,  the  rule  of  the  war  of  1756,  and  the 
order  in  council,  combined  to  sweep  all  neutral  com- 
7 


.50 

iliercc  from  the  ocean.  The  requisition,  the  embar- 
go, and  the  maximum  left  scarcely  a  tatter  of  un- 
plundered  neutral  i)roperty  in  France.  Britain,  with- 
out a  blush,  interdicted  all  neutral  commerce  with 
her  enemy.  France,  under  the  dove-like  banners  of 
fraternity  sent  an  Envoy  to  Washington,  with  the 
fraternal  kiss  upon  his  lips,  and  the  piratical  com- 
mission in  his  sleeve ;  with  the  pectoral  of  right- 
eousness on  his  breast,  and  the  trumpet  of  sedition 
in  his  mouth.  Within  one  year  from  the  breaking 
out  of  hostilities  between  Britain  and  France,  the 
outrages  of  both  parties  upon  the  peaceful  citizens  af 
this  Union,  were  such  as  would  have  amply  justified 
war  against  either,  and  left  to  the  government  of 
Washington  no  alternative,  but  that  or  reparation. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  war,  the  United  States 
were  represented  in  France  and  England  by  two  of 
their  most  distinguished  citizens,  both,  though  in  dif- 
ferent shades,  of  the  Federal  school;  by  Thomas 
Pinckney  at  London,  and  by  Gouverneur  Morris  in 
France.  The  remonstrances  of  Mr.  Pinckney 
against  the  frantic  and  reckless  injustice  of  the  Brit- 
ish government,  were  faithful,  earnest  and  indefati- 
gable ;  but  they  were  totally  disregarded.  Mr. 
Morris  had  given  irremissible  offence  to  all  the  revo- 
lutionary parties  in  France,  and  his  recall  had  been 
formally  demanded.  From  a  variety  of  causes,  the 
popular  resentments  in  America  ran  with  a  much 
stronger  current  against  Britain  than  against  France, 
and  movements  tending  directly  to  war,  were  in 
quick  succession,  following  each  other  in  Congress. 
Washington  arrested  them  by  the  institution  of  a 
special   mission   to  Great  Britain.     To  give  it  at 


51 

once  a  conciliatory  character,  and  to  impress  upon 
the  British  government  a  due  sense  of  its  importance, 
the  person  selected  for  this  mission  was  John  Jay, 
then  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States. 

James  Monroe,  was  shortly  afterwards  appoint- 
ed Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  the  Republic  of 
France.  In  the  selection  of  him,  the  same  principle 
of  conciliation  to  the  government  neai-  which  he  was 
accredited,  had  been  observed.  But  Washington 
was  actuated  also  by  a  further  motive  of  holding  the 
balance  between  the  parties  at  home  by  this  appoint- 
ment. Mr.  Jay  was  of  the  Federal  party,  with  a 
bias  of  inclination  favourable  to  Britain  ;  Mr.  Mon- 
roe, of  the  party  which  then  began  to  call  itself  the 
Republican  party,  inclining  to  favour  t4ie  cause  of 
Republican  France.  This  party  was  then  in  ardent 
opposition  to  the  general  course  of  Washington's 
administration — and  that  of  Mr.  Monroe  in  the 
Senate  had  not  been  inactive.  To  conciliate  that 
party  too,  was  an  object  of  Washington's  most  ear- 
nest solicitude.  From  among  them  he  determined 
that  the  successor  of  Mr.  Morris,  in  France,  should 
be  chosen,  and  the  members  of  the  Senate  of  that 
party  were  by  him  informally  consulted  to  designate 
who  of  their  number  would,  by  receiving  the  ap- 
pointment, secure  for  it  their  most  cordial  satisfac- 
tion. Their  first  indication  was  of  another  person. 
Him,  Washington,  from  a  distrust  of  individual 
character,  declined  to  appoint.  But  he  nominated 
Mr.  Monroe,  and  the  concurrence  of  the  senate  in 
his  appointment  was  unanimous.  This  incident, 
hitherto  unknown  to  the  public,  has  been  followed 
by  many  consequences,  some  of  them  perhaps  little 


52 

suspected,  in  our  liistory.  The  discrimination  of 
character  in  the  judgment  of  the  first  President  of 
the  United  States,  is  alike  creditable  to  him  and 
Mr.  Monroe.  It  was  not  without  hesitation  tliat  he 
availed  himself  of  the  preference  in  his  favour,  nor 
without  the  entire  approbation  of  the  party  with 
whom  he  had  acted,  including  even  the  individual 
who  had  been  rejected  by  the  prophetic  preposses- 
sion of  Washington. 

The  cotemporaneous  missions  of  Mr.  Jay  to  Great 
Britain,  and  of  Mr.  Monroe  to  France,  arc  among 
the  most  memorable  events  in  the  history  of  this 
Union.  There  are  in  the  annals  of  all  nations  oc- 
casions, when  wisdom  and  patriotism,  and  the  bright- 
est candour  mid  the  profoundest  sagacity,  are  alike 
unavailing  for  success.  There  are  sometimes  ele- 
ments of  discord,  in  the  social  relations  of  men, 
which  no  human  virtue  or  skill  can  reconcile.  Mr. 
Jay  and  Mr.  Monroe,  each  within  his  own  sphere  of 
action,  executed  with  equal  faithfulness,  perhaps 
with  equal  ability,  the  trust  committed  to  him,  in 
the  spirit  of  his  appointment  and  of  his  instructions. 
But  neutrality  was  the  duty  and  inclination  of  the 
American  administration,  and  neutrality  was  what 
neither  of  the  great  European  combatants  might 
endure.  In  the  long  history  of  national  animosities 
and  hatreds  between  the  French  and  British  nations, 
there  never  was  a  period  when  they  were  tinged 
with  deeper  infusions  of  the  wormwood  and  the  gall, 
than  at  that  precise  point  of  time. 

Each  of  the  parties,  believed  herself  contending 
for  her  national  existence  ;  each  proclaimed,  perhaps 
believed,  herself  the  last  and  only  barrier,  Britain 


63 

against  the  subversion  of  social  order,  France  against 
the  subversion  of  freedom  throughout  the  world. 

Mr.  Jay,  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  commission,  con- 
cluded a  Treaty  with  Great  Britain,  which  estab- 
lished, on  immovable  foundations,  the  neutrality  pro- 
claimed by  Washington :  it  reserved  the  faithful 
performance  of  all  the  previous  engagements  of  the 
United  States  with  France  ;  some  of  which  were,  in 
their  operation  at  that  time,  not  consonant  with  en- 
tire neutrality  :  but,  in  return  for  great  concessions, 
on  the  British  side,  it  yielded  some  points,  also, 
which  bore  as  little  the  aspect  of  neutrality  in  their 
operation  upon  France.  Mr.  Monroe,  himself,  fa- 
vored the  cause  of  France.  Both  Houses  of  Con- 
gress had  passed  Resolution's,  scarcely  consistent,  at 
least,  with  impartiality,  and  Washington,  under  ad- 
vice, perhaps  overswaycd  by  the  current  of  popular 
feeling,  afterwards  answered  an  address  of  tlu;  Min- 
ister of  France,  in  words  of  like  sympathy  with  her 
cause.  Arriving  in  France,  at  the  precise  moment 
when  the  excesses  of  the  revolutionary  parties  were 
on  the  turning  spring  tide  of  tlieir  highest  flood,  Mr. 
Monroe  was  received,  with  s})U^ndid  formality,  in 
the  bosom  of  the  National  Convention,  when  not  an- 
other civilized  nation  upon  earth,  had  a  recognized 
representative  in  France.  He  there  declared,  in 
perfect  consistency  with  his  instructions,  the  frater- 
nal friendship  of  his  country  and  her  government,  for 
the  French  people,  and  their  devoted  attaclmient  to 
her  cause,  as  the  cause  of  Freedom.  The  President 
of  the  Convention  answered  him  in  language  of 
equal  kindness  and  cordiality  ;  though  even  then  so 
little  of  real  benevolence  towards  the  United  States, 


54 

was  there  in  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  then 
the  executive  power  of  France,  that  it  was  to  cut 
short  their  protracted  deliberations,  whether  Mr. 
Monroe  should  be  received  at  all,  that  he  had  ad- 
dressed himself,  in  the  face  of  the  world,  for  an  an- 
swer to  that  inquiry  to  the  National  Convention 
itself.  Strong  expressions  of  kindness  are  the  ordi- 
nary common-places  of  the  diplomatic  intercourse 
between  nations :  and,  like  the  customary  civilities 
of  epistolary  correspondence  between  individuals, 
they  are  never  understood  according  to  the  full  im- 
port of  their  meaning ;  but  extreme  jealousy  and 
suspicion  at  that  time  pervaded  all  the  public  coun- 
cils of  France. 

She  professed  to  be  willing  that  the  United  States 
should  preserve  their  neutrality,  but  she  neither  re- 
spected it  herself  nor  acquiesced  in  the  measures 
which  it  dictated.  They  were  no  sooner  informed 
that  Mr.  Jay  had  signed  a  Treaty  with  Lord  Gren- 
ville,  than  they  began  to  press  Mr.  Mojnroe  with 
importunities  to  be  informed,  even  before  it  had  been 
submitted  to  the  American  Government,  of  all  its 
contents. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  position  more  awkward  and 
distressing,"  than  that  of  being  compelled  to  reject  an 
unreasonable  request  from  those  whose  friendship  it 
is  important  to  retain  ;  for  unreasonable  requests  are 
precisely  those  which  will  be  urged  with  the  great- 
est pertinacity.  To  enable  Mr.  Monroe  to  decline 
indulging  the  Committee  with  a  copy  of  the  Treaty, 
before  it  was  ratified,  he  was  under  the  necessity  of 
declining  to  receive  a  confidential  communication  of 
its  contents  from  Mr.  Jay.     The  difficulties  of  his 


55 

situation  became  much  greater  after  the  Treaty  had 
been  ratified,  and  was  made  public.  The  people  of 
the  United  States  were  so  equally  divided,  with  re- 
gard to  the  merits  of  the  Treaty,  that  it  became  the 
principal  object  of  contention  between  the  parties, 
and  they  were  bitterly  exasperated  against  each  other. 
The  French  Government,  which,  during  the  progress 
of  these  events,  had  passed  from  a  frantic  Committee 
of  Public  Safety,  to  a  profligate  Executive  Directory, 
took  advantage  of  these  dissensions  in  the  American 
Union.  They  suspended  the  operation  of  the  Trea- 
ties existing  between  the  United  States  and  France  ; 
they  issued  orders  for  capturing  all  American  vessels, 
bound  to  British  Ports,  or  having  property  of  their 
enemies  on  board  ;  their  diplomatic  correspondence 
exhibited  a  series  of  measures,  alike  injurious  and 
insulting  to  the  American  Government ;  and  they 
recalled  their  Minister  from  the  United  States,  with- 
out appointing  a  successor.  It  was,  perhaps,  rather 
the  misfortune  of  all,  than  the  fault  of  any  one,  that 
the  views  of  Mr.  Monroe,  with  regard  to  the  policy 
of  the  American  Administration,  did  not  accord  with 
those  of  President  Washington.  He  thought  that 
France  had  just  cause  of  complaint ;  and,  called  to 
the  painful  and  invidious  task  of  defending  and  jus- 
tifying that  which  he  personally  disapproved,  al- 
though he  never,  for  a  moment,  forgot  the  duties  of 
his  station,  it  was,  perhaps,  not  possible  that  he 
should  perform  them  entirely  to  the  satisfaction  of 
his  Government.  He  was  recalled,  towards  the 
close  of  Washington's  administration,  and  Charles 
Cotesworth  Pinckney  was  appointed  in  his  place. 


56 

To  the  history  of  our  subsequent  controversies 
with  France,  until  the  Peace  of  Amiens,  it  will  not 
be  necessary  for  me  to  advert.  Ui)on  Mr.  Monroe's 
return  to  the  United  States,  the  administration  had 
passed  from  the  hands  of  President  Washington, 
into  those  of  his  successor.  In  vindication  of  his 
own  character,  Mr.  Monroe  felt  himself  obliged  to 
go  before  the  tribunal  of  the  public,  and  published 
his  "  View  of  the  conduct  of  the  Executive  in  the 
foreign  affairs  of  the  United  States,  connected  with 
the  mission  to  the  French  Republic,  during  the  years 
1794,  '95,  and  '96. 

Upon  the  propriety  of  this  step,  as  well  as  with 
regard  to  the  execution  of  the  work,  opinions  were, 
at  the  time,  and  have  continued,  various.  The 
policy  of  Washington,  in  that  portentous  crisis  in 
human  affairs,  is,  in  the  main,  now  placed  beyond 
the  reach  of  criticism.  It  is  sanctioned  by  the 
nearly  unanimous  voice  of  posterity.  It  will  abide, 
in  unfading  lustre,  the  test  of  after  ages.  Nor  will 
the  well-earned  fame  of  Mr.  Monroe,  for  distin- 
guished ability,  or  pure  integrity,  suffer  from  the 
part  which  he  acted  in  these  transactions.  In  the 
fervour  of  political  contentions,  personal  animosities, 
belong  more  to  the  infirmities  of  man's  nature,  than 
to  individual  wrong,  and  they  are  unhappily  sharp- 
ened in  proportion  to  the  sincerity  with  which  con- 
flicting opinions  are  avowed.  It  is  the  property  of 
wise  and  honorable  minds,  to  lay  aside  these  resent- 
ments, and  the  prejudices  flowing  from  them,  when 
the  conflicts,  which  gave  rise  to  them,  have  passed 
away.  Thus  it  was  that  the  great  orator,  statesman, 
and  moralist,  of  antiquity,  when  reproached  for  re- 


57 

conciliation  with  a  bitter  antagonist,  declared  that  he 
wished  his  enmities  to  be  transient,  and  his  friend- 
ships immortal.  Thus  it  was,  that  the  congenial 
mind  of  James  Monroe,  at  the  zenith  of  his  public 
honours,  and  in  the  retirement  of  his  latest  days, 
cast. off,  like  the  suppuration  of  a  wound,  all  the 
feelings  of  unkindness,  and  all  the  severities  of 
judgment,  which  might  have  intruded  upon  his  bet- 
ter nature,  in  the  ardour  of  civil  dissension.  In 
veneration  for  the  character  of  Washington,  he  har- 
monized w  ith  the  now  unanimous  voice  of  his  coun- 
try ;  and  he  has  left  recorded,  with  his  own  hand,  a 
warm  and  unqualified  testimonial  to  the  pure  patriot- 
ism, the  pre-eminent  ability  and  the  spotless  integ- 
rity of  John  Jay. 

That  neither  the  recall  of  Mr.  Monroe,  from  his 
mission  to  France,  nor  the  publication  of  his  volume, 
had  any  effect  to  weaken  the  confidence  reposed  in 
him  by  his  fellow-citizens,  was  manifested  by  his  im- 
mediate election  to  the  Legislature,  and  soon  after- 
wards to  the  office  of  Governor  of  Virginia,  in  which 
he  served  for  the  term,  limited  by  the  Constitution, 
of  three  years.  In  the  mean  time,  the  Directory  of 
France,  with  its  Council  of  five  hundred,  and  its 
Council  of  Elders,  had  been  made  to  vanish  from  the 
scene,  by  the  magic  talisman  of  a  soldier's  sword. 
The  Government  of  France,  in  point  of  form,  was 
administered  by  a  Triad  of  Consuls :  in  point  of 
fact,  by  a  successful  warrior,  then  Consul  for  ten 
years — soon  to  be  Consul  for  life  :  hereditary  Em- 
peror and  King  of  Italy  ;  with  a  forehead,  burning  for 
a  diadem  ;  a  soul,  inflated  by  victory  ;  and  an  imag- 
ination, fired  with  visions  of  crowns  and  sceptres, 
8 


58 

in  prospect  before  him.  He  had  extorted,  from  the 
prostrate  imbecility  of  Spain,  the  province  of  Louis- 
iana, and  compelled  her,  before  the  delivery  of  the 
territory  to  him,  to  revoke  the  solemnly  stipulated 
privilege,  to  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  of  a 
deposit  at  New-Orleans.  A  military  colony  was  to 
be  settled  in  Louisiana,  and  the  materials,  for  an 
early  rupture  with  the  United  States,  were  indus- 
triously collected.  The  triumph  of  the  republican 
party,  here,  had  been  marked  by  the  election  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  to  the  Presidency :  just  before 
which,  our  previous  controversies  with  France  had 
been  adjusted  by  a  Treaty  of  Amity  and  Commerce, 
and  shortly  after  which,  a  suspension  of  arms,  be- 
tween France  and  Britain,  had  been  concluded,  un- 
der the  fallacious  name  of  a  Peace  at  Amiens.  The 
restless  spirit  of  Napoleon,  inflamed,  at  the  age  of 
most  active  energy  in  human  life,  by  the  gain  of  fifty 
battles,  dazzling  with  a  splendour,  then  unrivalled 
but  by  the  renown  of  Caesar,  breathing,  for  a  mo- 
ment, in  the  midway  path  of  his  career,  the  con- 
queror of  Egypt,  the  victor  of  Lodi,  and  of  Marengo, 
the  trampler  upon  the  neck  of  his  country,  her  peo- 
ple, her  legislators,  and  her  constitution,  was  about 
to  bring  his  veteran  legions,  in  formidable  proximity, 
to  this  Union.  The  transfer  of  Louisiana  to  France, 
the  projected  military  colony,  and  the  occlusion,  at 
that  precise  moment,  of  the  port  of  New-Orleans, 
operated  like  an  electric  shock,  in  this  country. 
The  pulse  of  the  West,  beat,  instaneously,  for  war  : 
and  the  antagonists  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  Congress, 
sounded  the  trumpet  of  vindication  to  the  rights  of 
the  nation ;  and,  as  they  perhaps  flattered  them- 
selves, of  downfall  to  his  administration.     In  this 


59 

crisis,  Mr.  Jefferson,  following  the  example  of  his 
first  predecessor,  on  a  similar  occasion,  instituted  a 
special  and  extraordinary  mission  to  France  ;  for 
which,  in  the  name  of  his  country,  and  of  the  high- 
est of  human  duties,  he  commanded,  rather,  than 
invited,  the  services  and  self-devotion  of  Mr.  Mon- 
roe. Nor  did  he  hesitate  to  accept  the  perilous, 
and,  at  that  time,  most  unpromising  charge.  He  was 
joined,  in  the  Commission  Extraordinary,  with  Rob- 
ert R.  Livingston,  then  Resident  Minister  Plenipo- 
tentiary, from  the  United  States,  in  France,  well 
known  as  one  of  the  most  eminent  leaders  of  our 
Revolution.  Mr.  Monroe's  appointment  was  made 
on  the  eleventh  of  January,  1803  ;  and,  as  Louisiana 
was  still  in  the  possession  of  S})ain,  he  was  appoint- 
ed, also,  jointly  with  Charles  Pinckney,  then  Minis- 
ter Plenipotentiary,  of  the  United  States  at  INIadrid, 
to  an  Extraordinary  Mission  to  negotiate,  if  neces- 
sary, concerning  the  same  interest  there.  The  in- 
tended object  of  these  negotiations  was  to  acquire, 
by  purchase,  the  island  of  New-Orleans,  and  the 
Spanish  territory,  cast  of  the  Mississippi.  Mr.  Liv- 
ingston had,  many  months  before,  presented  to  the 
French  Government  a  very  able  memorial,  shewing, 
by  conclusive  arguments,  that  the  cession  of  the 
Province  to  the  United  States,  would  be  a  measure 
of  wise  and  sound  policy,  condusive  not  less  to  the 
true  interests  of  France  than  to  those  of  the  Federal 
Union.  At  that  time,  however,  the  memoir  was 
too  widely  variant  from  the  wild  and  gigantic  pro- 
jects of  Napoleon. 

How  often  are  we  called,  in#iis  world  of  vicissi- 
tudes, to  testify  that 


60 

"  There  'a  a  Divinity,  who  shapes  our  ends, 
Bough  licw  tliern  how  we  will." 

When   Mr.   Monroe    arrived  in  France,  all  was 
changed  in  the  Councils  of  the  Tuileries.     The  vol- 
canic  crater  was  re-blazing  to  the   skies.     The   war 
between  France  and  Britain  was  rekindling,  and  the 
article  of  most  immediate  urgency  to  the  necessities 
of  the  first  consul  was  money.     The  military  colony 
of  twenty  thousand  veterans  already   assembled  at 
Helovet-Sluys   to   embark  for    Louisiana,    received 
another  destination.     The  continent  of  America  was 
relieved  from   the   imminent  prospect  of  a  conflict 
with   the   modern   Alexander,  and  Mr.  Monroe  had 
scarcely  reached  Paris,  when  he  and  his  colleague 
were  informed  that  the  French  government  had  re- 
solved  for  an  adequate   compensation  in  money,  to 
cede  to  the  United  States,  the  whole   of  Louisiana. 
The  acquisition,  and  the  sum  demanded  for  it,  trans- 
cended the  powers  of  the  American  Plenipotentiaries, 
and  the   amount  of  the  funds  at  their  disposal ;  but 
they  hesitated  not  to  accept  the  offer.     The  negotia- 
tion was  concluded  in  a  fortnight.     The  ratifications 
of  the   treaty,   with   those   of   a  convention  appro- 
priating part  of  the  funds  created  by  it  to  the  adjust- 
ment  of  certain   claims    of  citizens   of  the   United 
States   upon   France,   were   within  six  months  ex- 
changed at  Washington,  and  the  majestic   valley   of 
the  Mississippi,  and   the  rocky   mountains,  and   the 
shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  became  integral  parts  of 
the  North  American  Union. 

From  France,  immediately  after  the  conclusion  of 
the  treaties,  Mr.  MormoE  proceeded  to  England  w  here 
he  was  commissioned  as  the  successor  of  Rufus  King 


61 

in  the  character  of  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the 
United  States.  Mr.  King  was,  at  his  own  request, 
returning  to  his  own  country,  after  a  mission  of  seven 
years,  in  which  he  had  enjoyed  the  rare  advantage  of 
giving  satisfaction  alike  to  his  own  government,  and 
to  that  to  which  he  was  accredited.  Mr.  Monroe  car- 
ried with  him  the  same  dispositions,  and  had  the 
temper  of  the  British  government  continued  to  be 
marked  with  the  same  good  humour  and  moderation 
which  had  prevailed  during  the  mission  of  Mr.  King, 
that  of  Mr.  Monroe  would  have  been  equally  suc- 
cessful. But  with  the  renewal  of  the  war  revived 
the  injustice  of  belligerent  pretentions,  followed  by 
the  violence  of  belligerent  outrages  upon  neutrality. 
After  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  Mr.  Jay,  and 
especially  towards  the  close  of  the  preceding  war, 
the  British  government  had  gradually  abstained  from 
the  exercise  of  those  outrages  which  had  brought 
them  to  the  verge  of  a  war  with  the  United  States, 
and  at  the  issue  of  a  correspondence  with  Mr.  King, 
had  disclaimed  the  right  of  interference  with  the 
trade  between  neutral  ports  and  the  colonies  of  her 
enemies.  Just  before  the  departure  of  Mr.  King,  a 
convention  had  been  proposed  by  him  in  which  Bri- 
tain abandoned  the  pretension  of  right  to  impress 
seamen,  which  failed  only  by  a  captious  exception 
for  the  narrow  seas,  suggested  by  a  naval  oflicer, 
then  at  the  head  of  the  admiralty.  But  after  the 
war  recommenced,  the  odious  pretensions  and  op- 
pressive practices  of  unlicensed  rapine  returned  in  its 
train.  In  the  midst  of  his  discussions  with  the  Brit- 
ish government  on  these  topics,  Mr.  Monroe  was 
called  away  to  the  discharge  of  his  extraordinary 
mission  to  Spain. 


62 

In  the   retrocession   of  Louisiana,   by   France   to 
Spain,  no  limits  of  the   province  had   been  defined. 
It  was  retroceded  with  a  reference   to   its  original 
boundaries  as  possessed  by  France,  but  those    boun- 
daries   had  been  a  subject   of  altercation  between 
France  and  Spain,  from   the   time  \Ahen   Louis  the 
14th  had  made  a  grant  of  Louisiana  to  Crozat.    Na- 
poleon took   this   retrocession  of  the  province,  well 
aware  of  the  gordian  knot  with  w  hich  it  was  bound, 
and  fully  determined  to  sever  it  with  his  accustomed 
solvent  the  sw  ord.     His  own  cession  of  the  province 
to  the  United  States,  however,  relieved  him  from  the 
necessity  of  resorting  to  this  expedient,  and  propor- 
tionably  contracted  in  his  mind  the  dimensions  of  the 
province.     He  ceded  Louisiana  to  the  United  States 
without  waiting  for  the  delivery  of  possession  to  him- 
self, and  used  with   regard   to   the  boundary   in  his 
grant,  the  very  words  of  the  conveyance  to  him  by 
Spain.     The  Spanish  government  solemnly  protest- 
ed against  the  cession  of  Louisiana   to  the   United 
States,  alledging  that  in   the  very   treaty  by   which 
France  had  reacquired  the  province   she  had   stipu- 
lated, never  to  cede  it  away  from  herself.     Soon  ad- 
monished, however,  of  her  own  helpless  condition, 
and  encouraged  to  transfer  her  objections   from   the 
cession  to  the   boundary,  she   \\  ithdrew  her   protest 
against  the  whole  transaction,  and  took  ground,  upon 
the  disputed  extent  of  the  province.     The  original 
claim  of  France  had  been  from   the  Pcrdido  East   to 
the  Rio  Bravo  West  of  the  Mississippi.     Mobile  had 
been  originally  a  French  settlement,  and  all  West 
Florida,  was  as  distinctly  within  the  claim  of  France, 
as  the  Mouth  of  the  Mississippi  ^first  discovered  by 


63 

La  Salle.  Such  was  the  understanding  of  the  Ameri- 
can Plenipotentiaries,  and  of  Congress  who  accord- 
ingly authorised  President  Jefferson  to  establish  a 
collection  district  on  the  shores,  waters  and  inlets 
of  the  bay  and  river  Mobile,  and  of  rivers  both  East 
and  West  of  the  same.  But  Spain  on  her  part  re- 
duced the  province  of  Louisiana  to  little  more  than 
the  Island  of  New-Orleans.  She  assumed  an  atti- 
tude menacing  immediate  war  ;  refused  to  ratify  a 
convention  made  under  the  eye  of  her  own  govern- 
ernment  at  Madrid,  for  indemnifying  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  plundered  under  her  authority  during 
the  preceding  war.  Harrassed  and  ransomed  the  citi- 
zens of  the  Union  and  their  property  on  the  waters 
of  Mobile  ;  and  marched  military  forces  to  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Sabine,  where  they  were  met  by  troops 
of  the  United  States,  with  whom  a  conflict  was  spar- 
ed only  by  a  temporary  military  convention  between 
the  respective  commanders.  It  was  at  this  emer- 
gency that  Mr.  MoiNRok  proceeded  from  London  to 
Madrid  to  negotiate  together  with  Mr.  Pinckney, 
upon  this  boundary,  and  for  the  purchase  of  the  rem- 
nant of  Spain's  title  to  the  territory  of  Florida.  He 
passed  through  Paris  on  his  way,  precisely  at  the 
time  to  witness  the  venerable  Pontiff  of  the  Roman 
Church  invest  the  brows  of  Napoleon  with  the  hered- 
itary imperial  Crown  of  France,  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Notre  Dame.  While  in  Paris,  Mr.  Monroe  addressed 
to  the  then  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  Talleyrand, 
a  letter  reminding  him  of  a  promise  somewhat  in- 
definite, at  the  time  of  the  cession  of  Louisiana,  that 
the  good  offices  of  France,  in  aid  of  a  negotiation 
with  Spain  for  the  acquisition  of  Florida  should   be 


64 

yielded  :  stating  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Madrid 
to  enter  upon  that  negotiation,  and  claiming  the  ful- 
filment of  that  promise  of  France.  He  also  pre- 
sented the  view  taken  by  the  goTernnient  of  the 
United  States,  that  the  limits  of  Louisiana  as  ceded 
by  France  to  them  extended  from  the  Perdido  to  the 
Rio  Bravo.  This  letter  was  promptly  answered  by 
the  Minister  Talleyrand,  with  an  earnest  argument 
in  behalf  of  the  Spanish  claim  of  boundary  Eastward 
of  the  Mississippi,  but  expressing  no  opinion  with 
regard  to  her  pretensions  Westward  of  that  river. 
His  Imperial  Majesty  had  discovered,  not  only  that 
West  Florida  formed  no  part  of  the  Territory  of  Louis- 
iana ;  but  that  he  never  had  entertained  such  an 
idea,  nor  imagined  that  a  retrocession  of  the  province 
as  it  had  been  possessed  by  France,  could  include 
the  District  of  Mobile.  This  argument  was  pressed 
with  so  much  apparent  candour  and  sincerity,  that  it 
may  give  interest  to  the  anecdote  which  I  am  about 
to  relate  as  a  commentary  upon  it.  It  happened  that 
a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  was  at 
New  Orleans,  when  the  Commissioner  of  Napoleon 
authorized  to  receive  possession  of  the  province  ar- 
rived there,  and  before  the  cession  to  the  United 
States.  This  commissioner  in  conversation  with  the 
American  senator,  told  him  that  the  military  colony 
from  France  might  be  soon  expected.  That  there 
was  perhaps  some  difference  of  opinion  between  the 
French  and  Spanish  governments  as  to  the  boundary; 
but  that  when  the  colony  arrived,  his  orders  were 
quietly  to  take  possession  to  the  Perdido  and  leave 
the  diversities  of  opinion  to  be  afterwards  discussed 
in  the  Cabinet.     This  anecdote  was  related  on  the 


65 

floor  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  bj  the 
member  of  that  body,  who  had  been  a  party  to  the 
conversation. 

But  with  this  forgetful  change  of  opinion  in  the 
new  crowned  head  of  the  Imperial  Republic,  there 
was  little  prospect  of  success  for  the  mission  of  Mr. 
Monroe  at  Madrid;  to  which  place  he  proceeded. 
There  in  the  space  of  five  months,  together  with  his 
colleague  Charles  Pinckney,  he  unfolded  the  princi- 
ples, and  discussed  the  justice  ofhis  country's  claims, 
in  correspondence  and  conferences  with  the  Prince 
of  the  Peace,  and  Don  Pedro  Cevallos  with  great 
ability,  but  without  immediate  effect.  The  questions 
which  Napoleon  would  have  settled  by  the  march  of 
a  detachment  from  his  military  colony,  were  to  abide 
their  issue  by  the  more  lingering,  and  more  deliber- 
ate march  of  time.  The  state  papers  which  passed 
at  that  stage  of  the  great  controversy  with  Spain,  re- 
mained many  years  buried  in  the  archives  of  the  gov- 
ernments respectively  parties  to  it.  They  have  since 
been  published  at  Washington;  but  so  little  of  attrac- 
tion have  diplomatic  documents  of  antiquated  date, 
even  to  the  wakeful  lovers  of  reading,  that  in  this 
enlightened  auditory  how  many — might  I  not  with 
more  propriety  inquire  how  few  there  are,  by  whom 
they  have  ever  been  perused  ?  It  is  nevertheless  due 
to  the  memory  of  Mr.  Monroe  and  of  his  colleague 
to  say  that  among  the  creditable  state  papers  of  this 
nation  they  will  rank  in  the  highest  order  : — that  they 
deserve  the  close  and  scrutinizing  attention  of  every 
American  statesman,  and  will  remain  solid,  howev- 
er unornamentcd,  monuments  of  intellectual  power 
9 


6(5 

applied  to  national  claims  of  right,  in  the  land  of  our 
fathers  and  the  ago  which  has  now  passed  away. 

In  June  1805,  Mr.  Monroe  returned  to  his  post 
at  London,  where  new  and  yet  more  arduous  labours 
awaited  him.  A  new  ministry,  at  the  head  of  which 
Mr.  Pitt  returned  to  power,  had  succeeded  the  mild 
but  feeble  administration  of  Mr.  Addington,  and  Lord 
Mulgrave  as  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  Earl  of  Harrow^by.  The  war  be- 
tween French  and  British  ambition  was  spreading 
over  Europe,  and  Napoleon,  by  threats  and  prepara- 
tions, and  demonstrations  of  a  purposed  invasion  of 
Great  Britain,  had  aroused  the  spirit  of  that  island  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  exasperation.  Conscious  of  their 
inability  to  contend  with  him  upon  the  continent  of 
Europe,  confident  in  their  unquestionable  but  not  then 
unquestioned  supremacy  over  him  upon  the  ocean,  the 
Britishgovernmentsaw  withan  evil  eye,  the  advanta- 
ges which  the  neutral  nations  were  deriving  from  their 
commercial  intercourse  with  France  and  her  allies. 
Little  observant  of  any  principle  but  that  of  her  own 
interest,  British  policy  then  conceived  the  project  of 
substituting  a  forced  commerce  between  her  own  sub- 
jects and  their  enemies,  by  annihilating  the  same  com- 
merce enjoyed  by  her  enemies  through  the  privileged 
medium  of  the  neutral  flag.  In  her  purposes  of  man- 
ifesting for  her  own  benefit  the  superiority  of  her 
power  upon  the  seas,  British  policy,  has,  as  her  occa- 
sions serve,  a  choice  of  expedients.  In  the  present 
instance,  for  the  space  of  two  full  years,  she  had  suf- 
fered neutral  navigation  to  enjoy  the  benefit  of  prin- 
ciples in  the  law  of  nations,  formerly  recognized  by 
herself,  in  the  (Correspondence  between  Mr.  King  and 


67 

Lord  Hawkesbuiy,  shortly  before  the  close  of  the  pre- 
ceding war.  In  the  confidence  of  this  recognition? 
the  commerce  and  navigation  of  the  United  States 
had  grown  and  flourished  beyond  all  former  example, 
and  the  ocean  whitened  with  their  canvass.  Sudden- 
ly, as  if  by  a  concerted  signal  throughout  the  world 
of  waters  which  encompass  the  globe,  our  hardy  and 
peaceful,  though  intrepid  mariners,  found  tliemselves 
an*estcd  in  their  career  of  industry  and  skill ;  seized 
by  the  British  cruizers ;  their  vessels  and  cargoes 
conducted  into  British  ports,  and  by  the  spontane- 
ous and  sympathetic  illumination  of  British  Courts 
of  Vice  Admiralty,  adjudicated  to  the  captors,  be- 
cause they  were  engaged  in  a  trade  with  the  ene- 
mies of  Britain,  to  which  they  had  not  usually  been 
admitted  in  time  of  peace.  Mr.  Monroe  had  scarce- 
ly reached  London,  when  he  received  a  report  from 
the  Consul  of  the  United  States  at  that  place,  an- 
nouncing that  about  twenty  of  their  vessels,  had, 
within  a  few  weeks  been  brought  into  the  British 
ports  on  the  Channel,  and  that  by  the  condemnation 
of  more  than  one  of  them,  the  Admiralty  Court  had 
settled  the  principle. 

And  thus  was  revived  the  stubborn  contest  be- 
tween neutral  rights  and  belligerent  pretensions, 
which  had  sown,  for  so  many  years,  thickets  of 
thorns  in  the  path  of  the  preceding  administrations ; 
wliich  Washington  had  with  infinite  difficulty  avoid- 
ed, and  which  his  successor  had  scarcely  been  fortu- 
nate enough  to  avoid.  And  from  that  day  to  the 
peace  of  Ghent,  tlic  biography  of  James  JNIoiNROE  is 
the  history  of  that  struggle,  and  in  a  great  degree 
the  history  of  this  nation — an  eventful  period  in  the 


68 

annals  of  mankind  ;  a  deeply  momentous  crisis  in 
the  affairs  of  our  Union.  A  rapid  sketch  of  the 
agency  of  Mr.  Monroe  in  several  successive  and  im- 
portant stations,  through  this  series  of  vicissitudes,  is 
all  that  the  occasion  will  permit,  and  more,  I  fear, 
than  the  time  accorded  by  the  indulgence  of  my  au- 
ditory will  allow.  The  controversy  was  opened  by 
a  note  of  mild,  but  indignant  remonstrance  from  Mr. 
Monroe  to  the  Earl  of  Mulgrave,  answered  by  that 
nobleman  verbally,  with  excuse,  apology,  qualified 
avowal,  equivocation,  and  a  promise  of  written  dis- 
cussion, which  never  came.  Mr.  Pitt  died  ;  his  min- 
istry was  dissolved,  and  he  was  succeeded  as  the 
head  of  the  administration,  by  the  great  rival  and 
competitor  of  his  fame,  Charles  Fox.  In  the  mean 
time  .the  navies  of  France  and  Spain  had  been  anni- 
hilated at  Trafalgar,  and  the  imperial  crowns  of 
Muscovy  and  of  Austria,  had  cowered  under  the 
blossoming  sceptre  of  the  soldier  of  fortune  at  Aus- 
terlitz.  Mr.  Fox,  liberal  in  his  principles  but  tram- 
melled by  the  passions,  prejudices,  and  terrors  of  his 
countrymen  and  his  colleagues,  disavowed  the  new 
practice  of  capturing  neutrals,  and  the  new  princi- 
ples in  the  Admiralty  Courts  which  had  so  simulta- 
neously made  their  appearance  :  but  Mr.  Fox  issued 
a  paper  blockade  of  the  whole  coast,  from  the 
Elbe  to  Brest.  He  revoked  the  orders  under  which 
the  British  cruizers  had  swept  the  seas,  and  released 
the  vessels  already  captured,  upon  which  the  sen- 
tence of  the  Admiralty  had  not  been  passed,  but  he 
demurred  to  the  claim  of  indemnity  for  adjudications 
already  consummated.  Of  the  excitement  and  agi- 
tation, raised  in  our  country  by  this  inroad  upon  the 


I 


69 

laws  of  nation^,  and  upon  neutral  commerce,  an  ade- 
quate  idea  can   now   scarcely  be  conceived.    The 
complaints,  the  remonstrances,  the  appeals  for  pro- 
tection to  Congress,  from  the  plundered  merchants, 
rung  throughout  the  Union.     A  fire  spreading  from 
Portland  to  New  Orleans,  would  have  scarcely  been 
more  destructive.    Memorial  upon  memorial,  from  all 
the  cities  of  the  land,  loaded  the  tables  of  the  Legis- 
lative Halls,  with  the  cry  of  distress  and  the  call  up- 
on the  national  arm  for  defence,  restitution  and  in- 
demnity.    Mr.  Jefferson   instituted  again  a   special 
and  extraordinary  mission  to  London,  in  which  Wil- 
liam   Pinkney,  perhaps  the  most    eloquent   of  our 
citizens  then  living,  was  united  with  Mr.  Monroe. 
Had  Mr.   Fox  lived,  their   negotiation  might  have 
been   ultimately  successful.       While  he   lived,   the 
cruizers  upon  the  seas  and  the  Admiralty  Courts  up- 
on the  shores,  suspended  their  concert  of  deprada- 
tion  upon  the  American  commerce,  and  a  treaty  was 
concluded  between  the  Ministers  of  our  country,  and 
Plenipotentiaries  selected  by  Mr.  Fox,  which,  with 
subsequent  modifications,  just  and  reasonable,  sug- 
gested on  our  part,  might  have  restored  peace  and 
harmony,  so  far  as  it  can  subsist,  between  emulous 
and  rival  nations.     As  transmitted  to  this  country, 
however,  the  treaty  was  deemed  by  Mr.  Jefferson, 
not  to  have  suflSciently  provided  against  the  odious 
impressment  of  our  seamen,  and  it  was  clogged 
with  a  declaration  of  the  British  Plenipotentiaries, 
delivered  after  the  signature  of  the  treaty,  suspend- 
ing the  obligation  upon  an  extraneous  and  inad- 
missible condition.     Mr.  Jefl^erson  sent  back  the 
treaty  for  revisal,  but  the  mature  and  conciliatory 


70 

spirit  of  Fox,  was  no  longer  to  bo  found  in  the 
councils  of  Britain.  It  had  been  succeeded  by  the 
dashing  and  flashy  spirit  of  George  Canning.  He 
refused  to  resume  the  negotiation.  Under  the  au- 
spices, not  of  positive  orders,  but  of  the  well  known 
temper  of  his  administration,  Berkley  committed 
the  unparalleled  outrage  upon  the  Chesapeake^ 
disavowed,  but  never  punished.  Then  came  the 
orders  in  council  of  November  1807;  the  procla- 
mation to  sanction  man-stealing  from  American 
merchantmen  by  royal  authority  ;  and  the  mockery 
of  an  olive  branch  in  the  hands  of  George  Rose — 
our  embargo  ;  the  liberal  and  healing  arrangement 
of  David  Erskine,  disavowed  by  his  government  as 
soon  as  known — but  not  unpunished ;  a  minister 
fresh  from  Copenhagen,  sent  to  administer  the 
healing  medicine  for  Erskine's  error,  in  the  shape 
of  insolence  and  defiance.  Insult  and  injury  fol- 
lowed each  other  in  foul  succession,  till  the  smiling 
visage  of  Peace  herself,  flushed  with  resentment, 
and  the  Representatives  of  the  nation  responded  to 
the  loud  and  indignant  call  of  their  country  for 
war.  When  the  British  government  refused  to  re- 
sume the  negotiation  of  the  treaty,  the  Extraordi- 
nary Mission  in  which  Monroe  and  Pinckney  had 
been  joined,  was  at  an  end.  Mr.  Monroe,  even 
before  the  commencement  of  that  negotiation,  had 
solicited  and  obtained  permission  to  return  home — 
a  determination,  the  execution  of  which  had  by 
that  special  joint  mission  been  postponed.  He 
suffered  a  further  short  detention,  in  consequence 
of  the  exploit  of  Admiral  Berkley  upon  the  Chesa- 
peake, and  returned  to  the  United  States  at  the 


71 

close  of  the  year  1807.  After  a  short  interval  pass- 
ed in  the  retirement  of  private  life,  he  was  again 
elected  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  upon  the  resig- 
nation of  Robert  Smith,  was  in  the  spring  of  1811, 
appointed  by  President  Madison,  Secretary  of  State. 
This  office  he  continued  to  hold  during  the  remain- 
der of  the  double  Presidential  term  of  Mr.  Madi- 
son, with  the  exception  of  about  six  months  at  the 
close  of  the  late  war  with  Great  Britain,  when  he 
discharged  the  then  still  more  arduous  duties  of  the 
War  Department.  On  the  return  of  peace  he  was 
restored  to  the  Department  of  State ;  and  on  the 
retirement  of  Mr.  Madison  in  1817,  he  was  elected 
President  of  the  United  States — re-elected  without 
opposition  in  1821.  On  the  third  of  March,  1825, 
he  retired  to  his  residence  in  Loudon  county,  Vir- 
ginia. Subsequent  to  that  period,  he  discharged 
the  ordinary  judicial  functions  of  a  magistrate  of 
the  county,  and  of  curator  of  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia. In  the  winter  of  1829  and  '30,  he  served  as 
a  member  of  the  Convention  called  to  revise  the 
Constitution  of  that  Commonwealth;  and  took  an 
active  part  in  their  deliberations  ;  over  which  he 
was  unanimously  chosen  to  preside.  From  this 
station,  he  was,  however,  compelled,  before  the 
close  of  the  labours  of  the  Convention,  by  severe 
illness,  to  retire.  The  succeeding  summer,  he  was, 
in  the  short  compass  of  a  week,  visited  by  the  be- 
reavement of  the  beloved  partner  of  his  life,  and  of 
another  near,  affectionate,  and  respected  relative. 
Soon  after  these  deep  and  trying  afflictions,  he  re- 
moved his  residence  to  the  city  of  New- York ; 
where,  surrounded  by  filial  solicitude  and  tender- 


n 

11CS3,  the  flickering  lamp  of  life  held  its  lingering 
flame,  as  if  to  await  the  clay  of  the  nation's  birth 
and  glory;  when  the  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  the 
statesman  of  the  Confederacy,  the  chosen  chieftain 
of  the  constituted  nation,  sunk  into  the  arms  of 
slumber,  to  awake  no  more  upon  earth,  and  yielded 
his  pure  and  gallant  spirit  to  receive  the  sentence 
of  his  Maker. 

Of  the  twenty  years,  which  intervened  between  his 
first  appointment,  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  his  de- 
cease, to  give  even  a  summary,  would  be  to  encroach 
beyond  endurance  upon  your  time.  He  came  to  the 
Department  of  State  at  a  time,  when  war,  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  was  impend- 
ing and  unavoidable.  It  was  a  crisis  in  the  affairs 
of  this  Union  full  of  difficulty  and  danger.  The 
Constitution  had  never  before  been  subjected  to 
the  trial  of  a  formidable  foreign  war ;  and  one  of 
the  greatest  misfortunes,  which  attended  it,  was  the 
want  of  unanimity  in  the  country  for  its  support. 
This  is  not  the  occasion  to  revive  the  dissensions 
which  then  agitated  the  public  mind.  It  may  suf- 
fice to  say  that,  until  the  war  broke  out,  and  during 
its  continuance,  the  duties  of  the  offices  held  by 
Mr.  Monroe,  at  the  head,  successively,  of  the  De- 
partments of  State  and  War,  were  performed  with 
untiring  assiduity,  with  universally  acknowledged 
ability,  and,  with  a  zeal  of  patriotism,  which  counted 
health,  fortune,  and  life  itself,  for  nothing,  in  the 
ardour  of  self-devotion  to  the  cause  of  his  country. 
It  is  a  tribute  of  justice  to  his  memory  to  say,  that 
he  was  invariably  the  adviser  of  energetic  councils  ; 
nor  is  the  conjecture  hazardous,  that,  had  his  ap- 


73 

pointment  to  the  Department  of  War,  preceded,  by 
six  months,  its  actual  date,  the  heaviest  disaster  of 
the  war,  heaviest,  because  its  remembrance  must 
be  coupled  with  the  blush  of  shame,  would  have 
been  spared  as  a  blotted  page  in  the  annals  of  our 
Union.  It  should  have  been  remembered,  that,  in 
war,  heedless  security,  on  one  side,  stimulates  des- 
perate expedients  on  the  other  ;  and  that  the  en- 
terprise, surely  fatal  to  the  undertaker,  when  en- 
countered by  precaution,  becomes  successful  a- 
chievement  over  the  helplessness  of  neglected  pre- 
paration. Such  had  been  the  uniform  lesson  of 
experience  in  former  ages  ;  such  had  it,  emphatical- 
ly, been  in  our  own  Revolutionary  War.  Strange, 
indeed,  would  it  ap[)car,  had  it  been  forgotten  by 
one  who  had  so  gloriously  and  so  dearly  purchased 
it  at  Trenton.  By  him  it  was  not  forgotten  :  nor 
had  it  escaped  the  calm  and  deliberate  foresight  of 
the  venerable  patriot,  who  then  presided  in  the  ex- 
ecutive chair ;  and,  at  this  casual  and  unpremedi- 
tated remembrance  of  him,  boar  with  me,  my  fellow- 
citizens,  if,  pausing  for  a  moment  from  the  con- 
templation of  the  kindred  virtues  of  his  successor, 
co-patriot,  and  friend,  T  indulge  the  effusion  of  grat- 
itude, and  of  public  veneration,  to  share  in  your 
gladness,  that  he  yet  lives — lives  to  impart  to  you, 
and  to  your  children,  the  priceless  jewel  of  his  in- 
struction :  lives  in  the  hour  of  darkness,  and  of  dan- 
ger, gathering  over  you,  as  if  from  the  portals  of 
eternity,  to  enlighten,  and  to  guide. 

Among  the  severest  trials  of  the  war,  was  the  de- 
ficiency of  adequate  funds  to  sustain  it,  and  the  pro- 
gressive degradation  of  the  national  credit.     15y  an 
10 


74 

unpropitious  combination  of  rival  interests,  and  of 
political  prejudices,  the  first  Bank  of  the  United 
States,  at  the  very  outset  of  the  war,  had  been  de- 
nied the  renewal  of  its  charter  :  a  heavier  blow  of 
illusive  and  contracted  policy,  could  scarcely  have 
befallen  the  Union.  The  polar-star  of  public  credit, 
and  of  commercial  confidence,  was  abstracted  from 
the  firmament,  and  the  needle  of  the  compass  wan- 
dered at  random  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  heavens. 
From  the  root  of  the  fallen  trunk,  sprang  up  a 
thicket  of  perishable  suckers — never  destined  to 
bear  fruit:  the  ofi*spring  of  summer  vegetation,  with- 
ering at  the  touch  of  the  first  winter's  frost.  Yet, 
upon  them  was  our  country  doomed  to  rely  :  it  was 
her  only  substitute  for  the  shade  and  shelter  of  the 
parent  tree.  The  currency  soon  fell  into  frightful 
disorder :  Banks,  with  fictitious  capital,  swarmed 
throughout  the  land,  and  spunged  the  purse  of  the 
people,  often  for  the  use  of  their  own  money,  with 
more  than  usurious  extortion.  The  solid  Banks, 
even  of  this  metropolis,  were  enabled  to  maintain 
their  integrity,  only  by  contracting  their  operations 
to  an  extent  ruinous  to  their  debtors,  and  to  them- 
selves. A  balance  of  trade,  operating  like  univer- 
sal fraud,  vitiated  the  channels  of  intercourse  be- 
tween North  and  South  :  and  the  Treasury  of  the 
Union  was  replenished  only  with  countless  millions 
of  silken  tatters,  and  unavailable  funds:  chartered 
corporations,  bankrupt,  under  the  gentle  name  of 
suspended  specie  payments,  and  without  a  dollar  of 
capital  to  pay  their  debts,  sold,  at  enormous  discounts, 
he  very  evidence  of  those  debts;  and  passed  off,  upon 
the  Government  of  their  country,  at  par,  their  rags — 


75 

purchasable,  iii  open  market,  at  depreciations  of 
thirty  and  forty  pur  cent.  In  the  meantime,  so  de- 
graded was  the  credit  of  the  nation,  and  so  empty 
their  Treasury,  that  Mr.  Monroe,  to  raise  the  funds 
indispensable  for  tiie  defence  of  New-Orleans, 
could  obtain  them  only  by  pledging  his  private  in- 
dividual credit,  as  subsidiary  to  that  of  the  nation. 
This  he  did  without  an  instant  of  hesitation,  nor 
was  he  less  ready  to  sacrifice  the  prospects  of  laud- 
able ambition,  than  the  objects  of  personal  interest, 
to  the  suflering  cause  of  his  country. 

Mr.  Monroe  was  appointed  to  the  Department 
of  War,  towards  the  close  of  the  campaign  of  1814. 
Among  the  first  of  his  duties,  was  that  of  preparing 
a  general  plan  of  military  operations  for  the  suc- 
ceeding year :  a  task  rendered  doubly  arduous  by 
the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  time.  When  the 
war,  between  the  United  States  and  Britain,  had 
first  kindled  into  flame,  Britain,  herself,  was  in  the 
convulsive  pangs  of  a  struggle,  which  had  often 
threatened  her  existence,  as  an  independent  na- 
tion— in  the  twentieth  year  of  a  war,  waged  with 
agonizing  exertions,  which  had  strained,  to  the  vital 
point  of  endurance,  all  the  sinews  of  her  power, 
and  absorbed  the  resources,  not  only  of  her  people 
then  on  the  theatre  of  life,  but  of  their  posterity,  for 
long  after-ages.  In  the  short  interval  of  two  years, 
from  the  commencement  of  her  war  with  America, 
in  a  series  of  those  vicissitudes  by  which  a  myste- 
rious Providence  rescues  its  impenetrable  decrees 
from  the  presumptuous  foresight  of  man,  Britain 
liad  transformed  the  mightiest  monarchies  ofEuropc, 
from  inveterate  enemies  into  devoted  allies ;  and, 


76 

in  the  metropolis  of  her  most  dreaded,  and  most 
detested  foe,  was  dictating  to  him  terms  of  humilia- 
tion, and  lessons  of  political  morality.  The  war 
had  terminated  in  her  complete  and  unqualified  tri- 
umph ;  her  numerous  victorious  veteran  legions, 
flushed  with  the  glory,  and  stung  with  the  ambition 
of  long-contested,  and  heard-earned,  success,  were 
turned  back  upon  her  hands,  without  occupation  for 
their  enterprise,  eager  for  new  fields  of  battle,  and 
new  rewards  of  achievement.  Ten  thousand  of 
these  selected  warriors  had  already  been  detached 
from  her  multitudes  in  arms,  commanded  by  a  fa- 
vorite lieutenant,  and  relative  of  Wellington,  to 
share  the  beauty  and  booty  of  New-Orleans,  and 
to  acquire,  for  a  time  which  her  after-consideration 
and  interest  were  to  determine,  the  mastery  of  the 
Mississippi,  his  waters,  and  his  shores.  The  fate 
of  this  gallant  host,  sealed  in  the  decrees  of  heaven, 
had  not  then  been  consummated  upon  earth.  They 
had  not  matched  their  forces  with  the  planters  and 
ploughmen  of  the  western  wilds — nor  learnt  the 
difference  between  a  struggle  with  the  servile  and 
mercenary  squadrons  of  a  military  conqueror,  and 
a  conflict  with  the  free-born  defenders  of  their  fire- 
sides, their  children,  and  their  wives.  Besides  that 
number  of  ten  thousand,  she  had  myriads  more 
at  her  disposal — burdens  at  once  upon  her  grati- 
tude and  her  revenues,  and  to  whom  she  could  fur- 
nish employment  and  support,  only  by  transporting 
them  to  gather  new  laurels,  and  rise  to  more  ex- 
alted renown  upon  the  ruins  of  our  Union. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs,  and  such  the  pros- 
pects of  the  coming  year  when  immediately  after 


77 

the  successful  enterprise  of  the  enemy  upon  our 
metropolis,  Congress  was  convened  upon  the  smok- 
ing ruins  of  the  Capitol,  and  Mr.  Monroe  was 
called,  without  retiring  from  the  duties  of  the  De- 
pEirtment  of  State,  to  assume  in  addition  to  them 
those  of  presiding  over  the  Department  of  War. 
Such  was  the  emergency  for  which  it  became  his 
duty  to  prepare  and  mature  plans  of  military  oper- 
ations. It  is  obvious  that  they  must  be  far  beyond 
the  range  of  the  ordinary  means  and  resources  on 
which  the  government  of  the  Union  had  been  ac- 
customed to  rely.  They  were  such  as  to  call  forth 
not  only  the  voluntary  but  the  unwilling  and  reluct- 
ant hand  of  the  citizen  to  defend  his  country. 
They  summoned  the  Legislative  voice  of  the  Union 
to  command  the  service  of  her  sons.  The  army, 
already  authorized  by  Acts  of  Congress  had  risen 
in  numbers  to  upwards  of  sixty  thousand  men:  Mr. 
Monroe  proposed  to  increase  it  to  one  hundred 
tliousand,  besides  auxiliary  military  force  ;  and,  in 
addition  to  all  the  usual  allurements  to  enlistment, 
to  levy  all  deficiencies  of  eftective  numbers,  by 
drafts  upon  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  This 
resort,  though  familiar  to  the  usages  of  our  own 
revolutionary  war,  was  now  in  the  clamours  of  polit- 
ical opposition,  assimilated  to  the  conscriptions  of 
revolutionary  France  and  of  Napoleon.  It  was  ob- 
noxious not  only  to  the  censure  of  all  those  who 
disapproved  the  war,  but  to  the  indolent,  the  luke- 
warm and  the  weak.  It  sent  the  recruiting  officer 
to  ruffle  the  repose  of  domestic  retirement.  It  au- 
thorized him  alike  to  unfold  the  oates  to  the  masr- 
nificent  mansion  of  the  wealthy  and  to  lift  the  latch 


78 

of  the  cottage  upon  tlic  mountains.  It  sounded  the 
trumpet  in  tlic  nursery.  It  rang  "to  arms"  in  the 
bed-chamber.  Mr.  Monroe  was  perfectly  aware 
that  the  recommendation  to  Congress  of  such  a 
plan,  must  at  least  for  a  time  deeply  alTect  the  per- 
sonal popularity  of  the  proposer.  He  believed  it 
to  be  necessary,  and  indispensable  to  the  triumph 
of  the  cause.  The  time  for  the  people  to  prepare 
their  minds  for  fixing  the  succession  to  the  presi- 
dential chair  was  approaching.  Mr.  Monroe  was 
already  prominent  among  the  names  upon  which 
the  public  sentiment  was  now  concentrating  itself 
as  a  suitable  candidate  for  the  trust.  It  was  fore- 
seen by  him,  that  the  purpose  of  defeating  the  plan, 
would  connect  itself  with  the  prospects  of  the  en- 
suing presidential  election,  and  that  the  friends  of 
rival  candidates,  otherwise  devoted  to  tlie  most  en- 
ergetic prosecution  of  the  war,  might  take  a  di- 
rection adverse  to  the  adoption  of  the  plan,  not 
from  the  intrinsic  oI)jections  against  it,  but  from  the 
popular  disfavour  which  it  might  shed  upon  its  au- 
thor. After  consultation  with  some  of  his  confi- 
dential friends,  he  resolved  in  the  event  of  the 
continuance  of  the  war,  to  withdraw  his  name  at 
once  from  thf?  complicated  conflicts  of  the  canvass, 
by  publicly  declining  to  stand  a  candidate  for  elec- 
tion to  the  presidency.  He  had  already  authoriz- 
ed one  or  more  persons  distinguished  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  Union,  to  announce  this  as  his  intention, 
which  would  have  been  carried  into  execution,  but 
that  the  motives  by  which  it  was  dictated,  were  sus- 
pended by  the  conclusion  of  the  peace. 

That  event  was  the  sera  of  a  new  system  of  pol- 


79 

icy,  and  new  divisions  of  parties  in  our  federal 
Union.  It  relieved  us  from  many  of  the  most  in- 
flammatory symptoms  of  our  political  disease.  It 
disengaged  us  from  all  sympathies  witli  foreigners 
predominating  over  those  due  to  our  own  country. 
We  have  now,  neitiier  in  the  hearts  of  personal  ri- 
vals, nor  upon  the  lips  of  political  adversaries  the 
reproach  of  devotion  to  a  French  or  a  British  fac- 
tion. If  we  rejoice  in  the  triumpii  of  European 
arms,  it  is  in  the  victories  of  the  cross  over  the  cres- 
cent. .  If  we  gladden  with  the  native  countrymen 
of  LaFayette  or  sadden  with  those  of  Pulaski  and 
Kosciusko,  it  is  the  gratulation  of  freedom  rescued 
from  oppression,  and  the  mourning  of  kindred  spir- 
its over  the  martyrs  to  their  country's  independ- 
ence. We  have  no  sympathies  but  with  the  joys 
and  sorrows  of  patriotism;  no  attachments  but  to 
the  cause  of  liberty  and  of  man. 

The  first  great  object  of  national  policy,  upon  the 
return  of  peace  was  the  redemption  of  tlie  Union 
from  fiscal  ruin.  Thi^  was  in  substance  accom- 
plished during  the  remnant  of  Madison's  admin- 
istration, principally  by  the  reestablishment  of  a 
National  Bank,  with  enlarged  capacities  and  capi- 
tal :  enacted  by  Congress  under  the  recommend.a- 
tion  of  the  Executive,  not  through  the  Department, 
but  with  the  concurrence  of  Mr.  Monroe.  He  upon 
the  cessation  of  the  war,  had  retired  from  thi5  easy 
though  laborious  duties  of  its  department,  and  de- 
voted all  his  faculties  to  the  political  intercourse  of 
the  nation  with  all  others.  There  was  a  remnant 
of  war  with  the  pirates  of  Algiers,  to  which  the 
gallant  and  lamented  Decatur  carried  peace  and 


80 

freedom  from  tribute  forever,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
cannon  of  a  single  frigate.  There  were  grave  and 
momentous  negotiations  of  commerce,  of  fisheries, 
of  boundary,  of  trade  with  either  India,  of  extinc- 
tion to  tlie  slave  trade,  of  South  American  free- 
dom, of  indemnity  for  enticed  and  depredated 
slaves,  with  Great  Britain  ;  others  on  various  topics 
scarcely  less  momentous  with  France,  with  Spain, 
with  Sweden  ;  and  with  almost  every  nation  of 
Europe  there  were  claims  unadjusted  for  outrages 
and  property  plundered  upon  the  seas,  or,  with  more 
shameless  destitution  of  any  just  or  lawful  pretext, 
in  their  own  ports.  There  was  a  system  of  policy 
to  be  pursued  with  regard  to  the  embryo  states  of 
Southern  America,  combining  the  fulfilment  of  the 
duties  of  neutrality,  with  the  rightful  furtherance  of 
their  emancipation. 

Turning  from  the  foreign  to  the  domestic  inter- 
ests of  the  united  republic,  there  were  objects  ris- 
ing to  contemplation  not  less  in  grandeur  of  design  ; 
not  less  arduous  in  preparation  for  the  effective 
agency  of  the  national  councils. 

The  most  painful,  perhaps  the  most  profitable 
lesson  of  the  war  was  the  primary  duty  of  the  na- 
tion to  place  itself  in  a  state  of  permanent  prepar- 
ation for  self-defence.  This  had  been  the  doctrine 
and  the  creed  of  Washington,  from  the  first  organ- 
ization of  the  government.  It  had  been  encoun- 
tered by  opposition  so  determined  and  persevering, 
sustained  by  prejudices  so  akin  to  reason  and  by 
sensibilities  so  natural  to  freemen,  that  all  the  in- 
fluence of  that  great  and  good  man,  aided  by  the 
foresight,  and  argument  and  earnest  solicitude  of 


81 

his  friends  to  carry  it  into  effect  had  proved  abor- 
tive. An  extensive  and  expensive  system  of  forti- 
fication upon  our  shores;  an  imposing  and  well  con- 
stituted naval  establishment  upon  the  seas,  had 
been  urged  in  all  the  ardour  and  sincerity  of  convic- 
tion by  the  federalists  of  the  Washington  school, 
not  only  without  producing  upon  the  majority  of  the 
nation  the  same  conviction,  but  with  the  mortifica- 
tion of  having  their  honest  zeal  for  the  public  wel- 
fare turned  as  an  engine  of  personal  warfare  upon 
themselves.  By  the  result  of  this  course  of  popu- 
lar feelings,  it  happened  that  when  the  war  in 
all  its  terrors  and  all  its  dangers  came,  it  was  to  be 
managed  and  supported  by  those  who  to  the  last 
moment  preceding  it,  had  resisted,  if  not  all,  at  least 
all  burdensome  and  effective  preparation  for  meet- 
ing it.  A  solemn  and  awful  responsibility  was  it, 
that  they  incurred ;  and  with  brave  and  gallant 
bearing  did  they  pass  through  the  ordeal  which 
they  had  defied.  Well  was  it  for  them  that  a  su- 
perintending Providence  shaped  the  ends,  rough- 
hewn  by  them  :  but  it  produced  conviction  upon 
their  minds ;  and  it  overcame  the  repugnances  of 
the  people.  A  combined  system  of  eflicient  forti- 
fication arming  the  shores  and  encircling  the  soil 
of  the  republic,  and  the  gradual  establishment  of  a 
powerful  navy,  were  from  the  restoration  of  the 
peace  unto  his  latest  hour,  among  the  paramount 
and  favorite  principles  in  the  political  system  of 
Mr.  Monroe  for  the  government  of  the  Union.  In 
these  objects,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  sup- 
ported as  well  by  the  opiniors  of  his  immediate  pre- 
decessor, as  by  the  predominant  sentiments  of  the 
11 


82 

people.     Tlie   system    in    both    its   branches  was 
Gommcneed  in  the  administration  and   with   the  full 
concurrence  of  Mr.  Madison.   It  has  continued  with- 
out vital  modification  to  this  day.     May  it  live  and 
flourish  through  all  the  political  conflicts,  to  which 
you  may   be   destined   hereafter,   and   survive  your 
children's  children,  till  augury  becomes  presumption. 
There  was  yet  another  object  of  great  and  nation- 
al interest,  brought  conspicuously  into  view  by  the 
war,  which  pressed   its   unwieldy  weight  upon  the 
Councils  of  the  Union,  from   the   conclusion  of  the 
peace.     It  was  the  adaptation  of  the  just  and  impar- 
tial action  of  the  federal  government  to   the  various 
interests    of  which    the    Union    is  composed,    with 
regard    to   revenue,   to   the   payment  of  the   public 
debt,  to  the   industrious   pursuits  of  the  farmer  and 
planter,  of  the  pioneers   of  the   wilderness,   of  the 
merchant  and  navigator,  of   the  manufacturer  and 
mechanic,  and  of   the   intellectual   labourer   of   the 
mind,  including  all  the  learned  professions  and  teach- 
ers of  literature,  religion  and  morals.     To  all  this,  a 
system  of  legitimate  and  equal  governmental  action 
was  to  be  adapted ;  and  vast  and  comprehensive  as 
the  bare  statement  of  it  will  present   itself  to  your 
minds,  it  was  rendered  still  more  complicated  by  the 
necessity  of  accommodating  it,  to  the  adverse   ope- 
ration upon  the  same  interests   of  foreign  and  rival 
legislation  through  the  medium  of  commercial  inter- 
course with  our  country.     At  the  very  moment  of 
the  peace,  the  occasion  was  seized  of  tendering  to 
all  the  commercial  nations  of  Europe   a  system  of 
intercourse  founded  upon  entire   reciprocity,  and  a 
liberal  and  perfect  equalization  of  impost  and  ton- 
nage duties.     This  ofler  was  very  partially  accepted, 


83 

but  has  gradually  extended  itself  to  several  of  the 
European  nations,  and  to  all  those  of  Southern  Ameri- 
ca. It  is  yet  incomplete,  and  its  destiny  hereafter  is 
uncertain.  It  must  perhaps  ever  so  remain,  as  it 
must  forever  depend  upon  the  enduring  and  concur- 
rent will  of  other  independent  nations.  The  fair, 
the  free,  the  fraternal  system  is  that  of  entire  reci- 
procity ;  and  as  the  principles  flowing  from  these 
impulses  speed  their  progress  in  the  civilization  of 
man,  there  are  grounds  for  hope  that  they  may  in 
process  of  time,  universally  prevail. 

But  there  were  otiier  interests  of  high  import 
calling  for  the  legislative  action  to  support  them. 
The  war  had  cut  off  the  supply  to  a  great  extent  of 
many  articles  of  foreign  manufacture,  of  universal 
consumption,  and  necessary  for  the  enjoyment  of  the 
comforts  of  life.  This  had  necessarily  introduced 
large  manufacturing  establishments,  to  which  the  ap- 
plication of  heavy  masses  of  capital  had  been  made. 
The  competition  of  foreign  manufactures  of  the  same 
articles,  aided  by  bounties  and  other  encouragements 
from  their  own  governments,  would  have  crushed  in 
their  infancy  all  such  establishments  here,  had  they 
not  been  supported  by  some  benefaction  from  the 
authority  of  the  Union.  The  adventurer  in  the 
Western  territories,  needed  the  assistance  of  the  na- 
tional arm  to  his  exertions  for  converting  the  wilder- 
ness into  a  garden.  Secure  from  the  assaults  of 
foreign  hostility,  the  whole  people  had  leisure  to 
turn  their  attention  to  the  improvement  of  their  own 
condition.  And  hence  the  protection  of  domestic 
industi*y  and  the  improvement  of  the  internal  com- 
munications between  the  portions  of  the  Union  re- 


84 

mote  from  each  other,  formed  an  associated  system  of 
policy,  embraced  by  many  of  our  most  distinguished 
citizens,  and  pursued  with  sincere  and  ardent  patriot- 
ism. This  system,  however,  was  destined  to  encounter 
two  obstacles  of  the  gravest  and  most  formidable  char- 
acter. The  first,  a  question  how  far  the  people  of  the 
Union  had  delegated  to  their  general  government  the 
power  of  providing  for  their  welfare,  of  promoting  their 
happiness,  of  improving  their  condition  ?    The   sec- 
ond,   whether   domestic    industry   and  internal  im- 
provement, limited  by  localities  less  extensive   than 
the  whole   Union  can  be  protected  and    promoted 
without  sacrifice  of  the  interests   of  one   portion  of 
the  Union  for  the  benefit  of  another.     The  divisions 
of   opinion   and    the    collisions    of   sentiment   upon 
these  points  have  been  festering  since  the  first  ad- 
vances of  the  system,  till  they  have  formed   an   im- 
posthume  in  the  body  politic  threatening  its  total  dis- 
solution.   Mr.  Monroe's  opinion  was,  that  the  power 
of  establishing  a  general  system  of  internal  improve- 
ment, had  not  been  delegated  to  Congress  ;  but  that 
the  power   of  levying  and   appropriating  money   for 
purposes   of  national   importance,   military  or  com- 
mercial, or  for  transportation  of  the  mail  was  among 
their  delegated   trusts.     These  subjects   have   been 
discussed  under  various  forms   in  the  deliberations  of 
Congress  from  that  period  to   the   present  day,  and 
they  are  yet  far  from  being   exhausted.     An   appro- 
priation of  ten  millions   of   dollars  annually  to  the 
discharge  of  the  principal  and  interest  of  the  public 
debt,  was  one  of  the  earliest  measures  of  Mr.  Madi- 
son's administration  after   the  peace,  and   that  pur- 
pose steadily  pursued  has  reduced  that  national  bur- 


86 

den  to  so  small  an  amount,  that  the  total  extinc- 
tion of  the  debt  can  scarcely  be  protracted  beyond  a 
term  of  two  or  three  years  from  this  time. 

On  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Madison  from  the  office 
of  chief  magistrate  in  1817,  Mr.  MoiNROe  was  elect- 
ed by  a  considerable  majority  of  the  suffrages  in  the 
electoral  colleges  as  his  successor.  This  election 
took  place  at  a  period  of  tranquillity  in  the  public 
mind,  of  whicli  there  had  been  no  previous  example 
since  the  second  election  of  Wasiiington.  To  this 
tranquillity,  many  concurring  causes,  such  as  are 
never  likely  to  meet  again,  contributed,  and  among 
them,  of  no  inferior  order  was  the  existing  state  of 
the  foreign,  and  especially  the  European  world.  It 
continued  through  the  four  years  of  his  first  Presi- 
dential term,  at  the  close  of  which  he  was  re-elected 
without  a  show  of  opposition,  and  by  the  voice  little 
less  than  unanimous  of  the  whole  people.  These 
halcyon  days  were  not  destined  to  endure.  The 
seeds  of  new  political  parties  were  latent  in  the 
withering  cores  of  the  old.  New  personal  rivalries 
were  shooting  np  from  the  roots  of  those  which  had 
been  levelled  with  the  earth.  New  ambitions  were 
kindling  from  beneath  the  embers  that  had  ceased  to 
smoke.  No  new  system  of  policy,  had  marked  the 
administration  of  Mr.  Monroe.  The  acquisition  of 
the  Floridas  had  completed  that  series  of  negotia- 
tions (perhaps  it  were  no  exaggeration  to  say,  of 
Revolutions)  which  had  commenced  under  the  con- 
federation with  the  Encargardo  de  Negocios  of  Spain. 
Viewed  as  a  whole,  throughout  its  extent,  can  there 
be  a  doubt  in  considering  it  as  the  most  magnificent 
supplement  to  our  national  Independence  presented 


86 

by  our  history,  and  will  there  arise  an  historian  of 
this  Republican  empire,  who  shall  fail  to  perceive  or 
hesitate  to  acknowledge,  that  throughout  the  long 
series  of  these  transactions,  which  more  than  dou- 
bled the  territories  of  the  North- American  Confeder- 
ation, the  leading  mind  of  that  great  movement  in 
the  annals  of  the  world,  and  thus  far  in  the  march  of 
human  improvement  upon  earth,  was  the  mind  of 
James  Monroe? 

In  his  Inaugural  Address,  delivered  according  to  a 
prevailing  usage,  upon  his  induction  to  office,  he  took 
a  general  view  of  the  existing  condition  and  general 
interests  of  the  nation,  and  marked  out  for  himself  a 
path  of  policy,  which  he  faithfully  pursued.  The 
first  of  the  objects  to  which  he  declared  that  his  pur- 
poses would  be  irected,  was  the  preparation  of  the 
country  for  future  defensive  war.  Fortification  of 
the  coast  and  inland  frontiers — peace  establishments 
of  the  army  and  navy,  with  an  improved  system  of 
regulation  and  discipline  for  the  militia,  were  the 
means  by  which  this  was  to  be  effected,  and  to 
which  his  indefatigable  labours  were  devoted.  The 
internal  improvement  of  the  country,  by  roads  and 
canals  ;  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  domes- 
tic manufactures  ;  the  cultivation  of  peace  and  friend- 
ship with  the  Indian  tribes — tendering  to  them,  al- 
ways, the  hand  of  cordiality,  and  alluring  them  by 
good  faith,  kindness,  and  beneficent  instruction,  to 
share  and  to  covet  the  blessings  of  civilization ;  a 
prudent,  judicious,  and  economical,  administration  of 
the  Treasury ;  with  the  profitable,  and,  at  the  same 
time  liberal,  management  of  the  public  lands,  then 
first  beginning  to  disclose  their  active  and  appreciat- 


87 

ing  value,  as  national  property :  all  these  were  an- 
nounced as  the  interests  of  the  great  community, 
which  he  surveyed  as  committed  to  his  charge,  and 
to  the  faithful  custody  and  advancement  of  which, 
his  unremitted  exertions  should  be  directed :  and 
never  was  pledge  with  more  entire  self-devotion  re- 
deemed. 

At  the  first  Session  of  Congress,  after  his  election 
to  the  Presidency,  Mr.  Monroe  deemed  it  his  duty, 
in  his  annual  message  to  that  body,  to  declare  to 
them  his  opinion,  that  the  power  to  establish  a  sys- 
tem of  Internal  Improvement  by  the  construction  of 
roads   and  canals,  was  not  possessed  by  Congress. 
But,  being  also  opinion,  that  no  country  of  such  vast 
extent  ever  offered  equal  inducements  to  improve- 
ments of  this  kind,  and  that,  never  were  consequen- 
ces, of  such  magnitude,  involved  in  them,  he  ear- 
nestly recommended  to  Congress,  to  urge  upon  the 
States  the  adoption  of  an  amendment  ^vhich  should 
confer  the  right  upon  them  ;  and  with  it,  the  right  of 
instituting  seminaries  of  learning,  for  the  all-important 
purpose  of  diffusing  knowledge  among  our  fellow- 
citizens  throughout  the  United  States.     Of  the  adop- 
tion of  such  an  amendment,  if  proposed  at  that  time, 
he  scarcely  entertained  a  doubt ;  but  a  majority  of 
both  Houses  of  the  National  Legislature,  were  firmly 
of  opinion  that  this  power  had  already  been  granted  : 
nor  has  the  majority  of  any  Congress,  since  that  time, 
been  enabled  to  conciliate  the  conclusions  that  a  pow- 
er, competent  to  the  annexation  of  Louisiana  to  this 
Union,  was  incompetent  to  the  construction  of  a  post- 
road,  to  the  opening  of  a  canal,  or  to  the  diffusion  of 
the  light  of  Heaven  upon  the  mind  of  after-ages,  by 
the  institution  of  seminaries  of  learning. 


88 

Notwithstanding  the  manifestation  of  these  opin- 
ions of  Mr.  Monroe,  a  subsequent  Congress  did  pass 
an  act  for  tlie  maintenance  and  reparation  of  the 
Cumberland  Road,  and  for  the  erecting  of  toll-gates 
upon  it.  Firm  and  consistent  in  the  constitutional 
views  which  he  had  taken,  he  deemed  it  his  duty  to 
apply  to  this  act  his  presidential  arresting  power ; 
and,  in  returning  the  Bill  to  the  House  where  it  orig- 
inated, justified  his  exercise  of  prerogative  in  an  able 
and  elaborate  exposition  of  the  reasons  of  his  opin- 
ions. This  work,  probably,  contains  whatever  of 
argument  the  intellectual  povyer  of  man  can  evisce- 
rate from  reason,  against  the  exercise,  by  Congress, 
of  the  contested  power.  It  arrested,  to  a  considera- 
ble extent,  the  progress  of  Internal  Improvement  ; 
and,  succeeded  by  similar  scruples  in  the  mind  of  one  of 
his  successors,  has  held  them  in  abeyance  to  this  day. 

The  opinions  of  James  Monroe  upon  doubtful  or 
controverted  points  of  Constitutional  Law,  can  never 
cease  to  be  deserving  of  profound  respect.  They  were 
never  lightly  entertained.  They  were  always  deliber- 
ate, always  disinterested,  always  sincere.  At  a  subse- 
quent period  of  his  administration,  as  it  drew  to- 
wards its  close,  a  modification  suggested  itself  to  his 
mind,  warranting  a  compromise  between  the  doc- 
trines of  those  who  invoked  the  beneficent  action  of 
of  Congress  for  national  improvement,  and  of  those 
who  denied  to  the  Supreme  Councils  of  the  nation 
the  right  of  conferring  blessings  upon  the  people. 
In  his  annual  Message  to  Congress  on  the  2d  of  De- 
cember 1823,  he  announced  his  belief  that  Congress 
did  possess  the  power  of  appropriatirig  7noney  for 
the  construction  of  a  Canal  to  connect  together  the 
waters  of  the  Chesapeake  and  the  Ohio  (the  juris- 


89 

diction  remaining  to  the  States  through  which  the 
Canal  would  pass.)  This  of  course  included  the 
concession  of  the  same  right  of  appropriating  money 
for  all  other  like  objects  of  national  interest,  and  it 
was  accompanied  with  a  recommendation  to  Con- 
gress to  consider  the  expediency  of  authorizing  by 
an  adequate  appropriation  the  employment  of  a  suita- 
ble number  of  the  Officers  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers, 
to  examine  tlic  unexplored  ground  during  the  ensuing 
season,  and  to  report  their  opinion  thereon  ;  extend- 
ing also  their  examination  to  the  several  routes  through 
which  the  waters  of  the  Ohio,  might  be  connected,  by 
Canals,  with  those  of  Lake  Eric.  Under  this  recom- 
mendation, an  Act  of  Congress  was  passed,  and  on 
the  30th  of  April,  1824,  received  the  signature  of 
Mr.  Monroe,  appropriating  the  sum  of  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars  ;  authorizing  and  enabling  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  to  cause  the  necessary  sur- 
veys, plans  and  estimates  to  be  made  of  the  routes  of 
such  Roads  and  Canals  as  he  might  deem  of  nation- 
al importance,  in  a  commercial  or  military  point  of 
view,  or  necessary  for  the  transportation  of  the  pub- 
lic mail ;  designating  in  the  case  of  each  Canal,  what 
parts  might  be  made  capable  of  sloop  navigation.  The 
results  of  the  surveys  to  be  laid  before  Congress.  And 
the  President  was  authorized  to  employ  Civil  Engi- 
neers, with  such  officers  of  the  several  military  corps 
in  the  public  service  as  he  might  detail  for  that  ser- 
vice, to  accomplish  the  purposes  of  the  Act. 

"  Sink  down,  ye  mountains  !  and  ye  vallies — rise  !" 

Rise !   Rise,  before  your  forefathers,  here  assembled, 
ve   unborn   a2:es  of  after-time.      Rise !    and  bid  the 
feeble    and  perishing   voice,    which   now  addresses 
12 


90 

them,  proclaim  vour  gratitude  to  your  and  their 
Creator,  for  having  disposed  the  hearts  of  that  por- 
tion of  their  Representatives,  who  then  composed 
their  Supreme  National  Council,  to  the  passage  of 
that  Act.  Exult  and  shout  for  jo v  I  Rejoice  !  that, 
if  for  you,  there  are  neither  Rocky  Mountains,  nor 
Oasis  of  the  Desert,  from  the  rivers  of  the  Southern 
Ocean  to  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  Sea :  Rejoice  ! 
that,  if  for  you,  the  waters  of  the  Columbia  mingle 
in  union  with  the  streams  of  the  Delaware,  the  lakes 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  the  floods  of  the  Missis- 
sippi :  Rejoice  !  that,  if  for  you,  every  valley  has 
been  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and  hill  has  been 
made  low,  the  crooked  straight,  and  the  rough  places 
plain  :  Rejoice  !  that,  if  for  you.  Time  has  been  di- 
vested of  his  delays,  and  Space  disburthened  of  his 
obstructions:  Rejoice!  that,  if  for  you,  the  distant 
have  been  drawn  near,  and  the  repulsive  allured  to 
mutual  attraction :  That,  if  for  you,  the  North 
American  Continent  swarms  with  unnumbered  mul- 
titudes ;  of  hearts,  beating  as  if  from  one  bosom ; 
of  voices,  speaking  but  with  one  tongue  ;  of  free- 
men, constituting  one  confederated  and  united  Re- 
public ;  of  brethren,  never  to  rise,  nation  against  na- 
tion, in  hostile  arms  ;  of  brethren,  to  fulfil  the  blessed 
prophecy  of  ancient  times,  that  war  shall  be  no  more  : 
to  the  power  of  applying  the  superfluous  revenues  of 
these,  your  fore-fathers,  by  their  representatives  in 
the  Congress  of  this  Union,  to  the  improvement  of 
your  condition,  you  are,  under  God,  indebted  for  the 
enjoyment  of  all  these  unspeakable  blessings. 

The  system  of  Internal  Improvement,  then,  though 
severely  checked,  by  the  opinion  that  the  people  of 
this  Union  have  practically  denied  to  themselves  the 


91 

power  of  bettering  their  own  condition,  by  restrain- 
ing their  Government  from  the  exercise  of  the  facul- 
ties, by  which  alone  it  can  be  made  effective,  was 
commenced  under  the  administration  of  James  Mon- 
roe :  commenced  with  his  sanction  :  commenced  at 
his  earnest  recommendation.  And  if,  in  after-ages, 
every  leaf,  in  the  chaplct  of  his  renown,  shall  be  ex- 
amined by  the  scrutinizing  eye  of  grateful  memory, 
to  fmdjin  the  perennial  green  of  all,  one  of  more  un- 
fading verdure  than  the  rest,  that  leaf  shall  unfold 
itself  from  the  stem  of  Internal  Improvement. 

It  is  not  Avithin  the  scope  of  your  intention,  nor  is 
it  the  purpose  of  this  discourse,  to  review  the  nu- 
merous and  important  Acts  of  Mr.  Monroe's  admin- 
istration. In  the  multitude  of  a  great  nation's  pub- 
lic affairs,  there  is  no  oflicial  act  of  their  Chief  Magis- 
trate, however  momentous,  or  liowevcr  minute,  but 
should  be  traceable  to  a  dictate  of  duty,  pointing  to 
the  welfare  of  the  people.  Such  was  the  cardinal 
principle  of  Mr.  Monroe.  In  his  first  address,  upon 
his  election  to  the  Presidency,  he  had  exposed  the 
general  principles  by  which  his  conduct,  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  great  trust,  would  be  regulated.  In 
his  second  Inaugural  Address,  he  succinctly  reviewed 
that  portion  of  the  career  through  which  he  had 
passed,  fortunately  sanctioned  by  public  approbation ; 
and  promised  perseverance  in  it,  to  the  close  of  his 
public  service.  And,  in  his  last  annual  Message  to 
Congress,  on  the  seventh  of  December,  1824,  an- 
nouncing his  retirement  from  public  life,  after  the 
close  of  that  session  of  the  Legislature,  he  reviewed 
the  whole  course  of  his  administration,  comparing  it 
with  the  pledges  which  he  had  given  at  its  com- 
mencement, and  at  its  middle  term,  appealing  to  the 


92 

judgment  and  consciousness  of  those  whom  he  ad- 
dressed, for  its  unity  of  principle  as  one  consistent 
whole,  not  exempt  indeed,  from  the  errors  and  infir- 
mities incident  to  all  human  action,  but  characteristic 
of  purposes  always  honest  and  sincere,  of  intentions 
always  pure,  of  labours  outlasting  the  daily  circuit  of 
the  sun,  and  outwatching  the  vigils  of  the  night — 
and  what  he  said  not,  but  a  faithful  witness  is  bound 
to  record ;  of  a  mind  anxious  and  unwearied  in  the 
pursuit  of  truth  and  right ;  patient  of  inquiry  ;  pa- 
tient of  contradiction ;  courteous,  even  in  the  colli- 
sion of  sentiment ;  sound  in  its  ultimate  judgments  ; 
and  firm  in  its  final  conclusions. 

Such  my  fellow  citizens  was  James  Monroe. 
Such  was  the  man,  who  presents  the  only  example 
of  one  whose  public  life,  commenced  with  the  War 
of  Independence,  and  is  identified  with  all  the  im- 
portant events  of  your  history  from  that  day  forth 
for  a  full  half  century.  And  now,  what  is  the  pur- 
pose for  which  we  have  here  assembled  to  do  honour 
to  his  memory  ?  Is  it  to  scatter  perishable  flowers 
upon  the  yet  unsodded  grave  of  a  public  benefactor  ? 
Is  it  to  mingle  tears  of  sympathy  and  of  consolation, 
with  those  of  mourning  and  bereaved  children  ?  Is 
it  to  do  honour  to  ourselves,  by  manifesting  a  be- 
coming sensibility,  at  the  departure  of  one,  who  by 
a  long  career  of  honour  and  of  usefulness  has  been 
to  us  all  as  a  friend  and  l)rother  ?  Or  is  it  not  ratlier  to 
mark  the  memorable  incidents  of  a  life  signalized  by 
all  the  properties  which  embody  the  precepts  of  vir- 
tue and  the  principles  of  wisdom  ?  Is  it  not  to  pause 
for  a  moment  from  the  passions  of  our  own  bosoms, 
and  the  agitations  of  our  own  interests,  to  survey  in 
its  whole  extent  the  long  and  little-beaten  path  of 


93 

the  great  and  the  good  :  to  fix  with  intense  inspec- 
tion our  own  vision,  and  to  point  the  ardent  but  un- 
settled gaze  of  our  children  upon  that  resplendent 
row  of  cresset  lamps,  fed  with  the  purest  vital  air, 
which  illuminate  the  path  of  the  hero,  the  states- 
man and  the  sage.  Have  you  a  son  of  ardent  feel- 
ings and  ingenuous  mind,  docile  to  instruction,  and 
panting  for  honorable  distinction  ?  point  him  to  the 
pallid  cheek  and  agonizing  form  of  James  Monroe, 
at  the  opening  blossom  of  life,  weltering  in  his  blood 
on  the  field  of  Trenton,  for  the  cause  of  his  country. 
Then  turn  his  eye  to  the  same  form,  seven  years 
later,  in  health  and  vigour,  still  in  the  bloom  of  youth, 
but  seated  among  the  Conscript  Fathers  of  the  land 
to  receive  entwined  with  all  its  laurels  the  sheathed 
and  triumphant  sword  of  Washington.  Guide  his 
eye  along  to  the  same  object,  investigating  by  the 
midnight  lamp,  the  laws  of  nature  and  nations,  and 
unfolding  them,  at  once  with  all  the  convictions  of 
reason  and  all  the  persuasions  of  eloquence  to  dem- 
onstrate the  rights  of  his  countrymen  to  the  contest- 
ed Navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  in  the  Hall  of  Con- 
gress. Follow  him  with  this  trace  in  his  hand, 
through  a  long  series  of  years,  by  laborious  travels 
and  intricate  Negotiations,  at  Imperial  Courts,  and 
in  the  Palaces  of  Kings,  winding  his  way  amidst  the 
ferocious  and  party  coloured  Revolutions  of  France, 
and  the  life-guard  favourites  and  Camarillas  of  Spain. 
Then  look  at  the  Map  of  United  North  America,  as 
it  was  at  the  definitive  peace  of  1783.  Compare  it 
with  the  maj)  of  that  same  Empire  as  it  is  now  ; 
limited  by  the  Sabine  and  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
say,  the  change,  more  than  of  any  other  man,  living  or 
dead,  was  the  work  of  James  Monroe.     See   him 


94 

pass  successively  from  the  Hall  of  the  Confederation 
Congress  to  the  Legislative  Assembly  of  his  native 
Commonwealth ;  to  their  Convention  which  ratified 
the  Constitution  of  the  North  American  people  ;   to 
the  Senate   of  the  Union ;  to    the   Chair   of  Diplo- 
matic Intercourse  with  ultra  Revolutionary  France  ; 
back  to  the  Executive  honours  of  his  native  state ; 
again   to   embassies  of  transcendant  magnitude,  to 
France,  to  Spain,  to  Britain ;  restored  once  more  to 
retirement  and  his  country ;  elevated  again  to  the  high- 
est trust  of  his  State  ;   transferred  successively  to  the 
two  preeminent  Departments   of  Peace  and  War,  in 
the  National  Government ;  and  at  the  most  momentous 
crisis  burthened  with  the  duties  of  both — and  finally 
raised,  first  by  the    suffrages   of  a  majority,  and   at 
last  by  the  unanimous  call  of  his  countrymen  to   the 
Chief  Magistracy  of  the  Union.     There  behold  him 
for  a  term  of  eight   years,  strengthening  his  country 
for  defence  by  a  system   of  combined  fortifications, 
military  and  naval,  sustaining  her  rights,  her  dignity 
and  honour  abroad ;  soothing  her  dissensions,  and  con- 
ciliating her  acerbities  at  home  ;  controuling  by  a  firm 
though  peaceful  policy  the  hostile  spirit  of  the  Euro- 
pean Alliance  against  Republican  Southern  America  ; 
extorting   by    the   mild   compulsion  of   reason,   the 
shores  of  the  Pacific  from   the   stipulated   acknowl- 
edgment of  Spain  ;  and   leading   back  the  imperial 
autocrat  of  the  North,  to  his  lawful  boundaries,  from 
his    hastily    asserted   dominion  over    the    Southern 
Ocean.     Thus   strengthening  and  consolidating  the 
federative  edifice  of  his  country's  Union,  till  he  was 
entitled  to  say  like  Augustus  Caesar  of  his  imperial 
city,  that  he  had  found  her  built  of  brick  and  left  her 
constructed  of  marble. 


95 

In  concluding  this  discourse,  permit  me,  fellow 
citizens  to  revert  to  the  sentiment  with  which  it 
commenced  ;  and  if  it  be  true  that  a  superintending 
Providence,  adapts  the  talents  and  energies  of  men 
to  the  trials  bj  which  they  are  to  be  tested,  it  is  fit- 
ting: for  us  to  be  admonished  that  the  trial  mav  also 
be  adapted  to  the  talents  destined  to  meet  it.  Our 
country  by  the  bountiful  dispensations  of  gracious 
Heaven,  is,  and  for  a  series  of  years  has  been  blessed 
with  profound  peace  ;  but  when  the  first  father  of 
our  race  had  exhibited  before  him  by  the  Archangel 
sent  to  announce  his  doom  and  to  console  him  in  his 
fall,  the  fortunes,  and  the  misfortunes  of  his  descend- 
ents,  he  saw  that  the  deepest  of  their  miseries  would 
befall  them,  w-hile  favoured  with  all  the  blessings  of 
peace,  and  in  the  bitterness  of  his  anguish  he  ex- 
claimed 

"  Now  I  sec 
Peace  to  corrupt,  no  les?  than  war  to  waste." 

It  is  the  very  fervour  of  the  noon-day  sun,  in  the 
cloudless  atmosphere  of  a  summer  sky,  which  breeds 

"  the  sweeping  whirlwind's  sway, 
That,  hush'd  in  grim  repose,  expects  his  evening  prey." 

You  have  insured  the  gallant  ship,  which  j)loughs 
the  waves,  freighted  with  your  lives  and  your  chil- 
dren's fortunes,  from  the  fury  of  the  tempest  above, 
and  from  the  treachery  of  the  wave  beneath.  Be- 
ware of  the  danger  against  which  you  can  alone  in- 
sure yourselves — the  latent  defect  of  the  gallant  ship 
herself.  Pass  but  a  few  short  days,  and  forty  years 
will  have  elapsed  since  the  voice  of  him,  who  ad- 
dresses you,  speaking  to  your  fathers,  from  this  hal- 
lowed spot,  gave  for  you,  in  the  face  of  Heaven,  the 
solemn  pledge,  that  if,  in  the  course  of  your  career 


96 

upon  earth,  emergencies  should  arise,  calling  for  the 
exercise  of  those  energies  and  virtues  which,  in  times 
of  tranquillity  and  peace,  remain,  by  the  will  of 
Heaven,  dormant  in  the  human  bosom,  you  would 
prove  yourselves  not  unworthy  of  the  sires  who  had 
toiled  and  fought  and  bled,  for  the  independence  of 
their  country.  Nor  has  that  pledge  been  unredeem- 
ed. You  have  maintained,  through  times  of  trial 
and  of  danger,  the  inheritance  of  freedom,  of  union, 
of  independence,  bequeathed  you  by  your  forefathers. 
It  remains  for  you  only  to  transmit  the  same  peer- 
less legacy,  unimpaired,  to  your  children  of  the  next 
succeeding  age.  To  this  end,  let  us  join  in  humble 
supplication,  to  the  Founder  of  empires  and  the  Cre- 
ator of  all  worlds,  that  he  would  continue  to  your 
posterity,  the  smiles  which  his  favour  has  bestow- 
ed upon  you  :  and  since  "  it  is  not  in  man  that  walk- 
eth  to  direct  his  steps,"  that  he  would  enlighten  and 
lead  the  advancing  generation  in  the  way  they  should 
go.  That  in  all  the  perils  and  all  the  mischances 
which  may  threaten  or  befall  our  United  Republic,  in 
after  times,  he  would  raise  up  from  among  your  sons, 
deliverers  to  enlighten  her  Councils,  to  defend  her 
freedom,  and  if  need  be  to  lead  her  armies  to  victo- 
ry. And  should  the  gloom  of  the  year  of  Independ- 
ence ever  again  overspread  the  sky,  or  the  metropo- 
lis of  your  empire  be  once  more  destined  to  smart  un- 
der the  scourge  of  an  invader's  hand,  that  there  never 
may  be  found  wanting  among  the  children  of  your 
country  a  warrior  to  bleed,  a  statesman  to  counsel,  a 
chief  to  direct  and  govern,  inspired  with  all  the  vir- 
tues, and  endowed  with  all  the  faculties,  which  have 
been  so  signally  displayed  in  the  life  of  James 
Monroe. 


APPEI¥DIX. 


Order  of  Exercises  at  the  Old  South  Church,  commemorative  of 
the  death  of  James  Monroe,  on  Thursday,  Jiug.  25,  1851. 


i....voLtrNTARY  ON  THE  ORGAN — by  Gcorge  J.  Webb. 

II....INTRODUCTORT    SENTENCES. 

By  Rev.  George  W.  Doane.... Rector  of  Trinity  Church. 

I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life,  saith  the  Lord  ;  he  that 
believeth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live;  and 
whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me,  shall  never  die. 

I  heard  a  voice  from  Heaven,  saying  unto  me,  write,  from 
henceforth  blessed  are  the  dead  who  die  in  the  Lord;  even  so 
saith  the  spirit;  for  they  rest  from  their  labours. 

We  brought  nothing  into  this  world,  and  it  is  certain  that 
we  can  carry  nothing  out. 

The  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord  hath  takethaway;  blessed  be 
the  name  of  the  Lord. 

Just  and  true  are  thy  ways,  thou  King  of  Saints.  Right- 
eousness and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  thy  seat. 

Who  is  like  unto  thee,  O  people  saved  by  the  Lord,  the 
shield  of  thy  help,  and  who  is  the  sword  of  thy  excellency. 

Let  us  Pray. 

Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven,  hallowed  be  thy  name;  thy 
kingdom  come;  thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven; 
give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread;  and  forgive  us  our  trespass- 
es, as  we  forgive  those  who  tresspass  against  us;  and  lead  us 
not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  evil,  for  thine  is  the 
kingdom,  and  the  power,  and  the  glory,  forever  and  ever. 
Amen. 

Almighty  and  everlasting  God,  who  art  always  more  ready  to 
hear  than  we  to  pray,  and  art  wont  to  give  more  than  either 
we  desire  or  deserve,  pour  down  upon   us  the   abundance   of 

13 


98 

thy  mercy,  forgiving  us  those  things  whereof  our  conscience 
is  afraid,  and  giving  us  those  good  things  which  we  are  not 
worthy  to  ask,  but  through  the  merits  and  mediation  of  Jesus 
Christ,  thy  Son  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Ahnighty  and  everlasting  God,  who  hatest  nothing  that  thou 
hast  made,  and  dost  forgive  tlie  sins  of  all  those  who  are  pen- 
itent, create  and  make  in  us  new  and  contrite  hearts,  that  we, 
worthily  lamenting  our  sins,  and  acknowledging  our  wretch- 
edness, may  obtain  of  thee,  the  God  of  all  mercy,  perfect  re- 
mission and  forgiveness,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.— 
A31EN. 

Lord  of  all  power  and  might,  who  art  the  Author  and  Giv- 
er of  all  good  things,  graft  in  our  hearts  the  love  of  thy  name, 
increase  in  us  true  religion,  nourishes  us  with  all  goodness, 
and,  of  thy  great  mercy,  keep  us  in  the  same  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Almighty  God,  with  whom  do  live  the  spirits  of  those  who 
depart  hence  in  the  Lord,  and  with  whom  the  souls  of  the 
faithful,  after  they  are  delivered  from  the  burthen  of  the  flesh, 
are  in  joy  and  felicity;  we  give  thee  hearty  thanks  for  the 
good  examples  of  all  those  thy  servants,  who  having  fin- 
ished their  course  in  faith,  do  now  rest  from  their  labours. 
And  w^e  beseech  Thee  that  we,  with  all  those  who  are  depart- 
ed in  the  true  faith  of  thy  holy  name,  may  have  our  perfect 
consummation  and  bliss,  both  in  body  and  soul,  in  thy  eternal 
glory,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Almighty  God,  Creator  of  the  Universe,  the  Maker  and 
Disposer  of  the  hearts  of  men,  and  Sovereign  Lord  of  all, 
who  hast  in  every  age,  made  known  thy  power  and  truth,  in 
the  deliverance,  protection,  and  preservation  of  states  and  em- 
pires, we  have  heard  with  our  ears,  and  our  fathers  have  de- 
clared unto  us,  the  noble  works  which,  in  behalf  of  this  our  fa- 
voured land,  thou  didst  vouchsafe  to  do  in  their  days,  and  in 
the  old  time  before  them.  We  adore  thy  name,  that  in  their  day 
of  darkness  and  dismay,  thou  wast  their  pillar  of  cloud  and 
fire,  for  guidance  and  guardianship  and  deliverance  from  the 
iron  bondage  of  the  oppressor.  We  acknowledge  that  it  was 
because  thou  wentest  forth  with  their  armies  and  didst  fight 
for  them,  that  their  little  one  was  enabled  to  chase  a  thousand, 
and  that  victory  crowned  their  arms.  And  we  confess  that  when 
the  din  of  battle  had  subsided,  and  thy  spirit,  moving  on  the 
troubled  waters,  had  lulled  them  all  to  peace,  it  was  by  thy 
wisdom  that  their  counsels  were  directed,  and  of  thy  goodness, 
that  their  signal  sacrifices,  and  generous  efforts,  were  con- 
ducted to  that  fair  result  in  which  our  hearts  rejoice.  We 
thank  thee  with  a  gratitude  more  pure  and  fervent  for  the  so- 


99 

lemn  service  which  to-day  assembles  us  together,  for  the  dis- 
tinguished warriors  and  able  counsellors,  to  vindicate  and  to 
mainfain  our  liberties,  whom,  in  the  great  time  of  our  necessi- 
ty, thy  holy  arm  raised  up;  and  for  the  mercy  and  goodness 
which,  following  us  still,  have  blessed  our  country,  in  the  se- 
renity of  peace,  with  wise  and  faithful  men  to  fill  with  dignity 
the  highest  stations  of  the  public  trust,  and  to  discharge  with 
energy  and  skill  the  arduous  responsibilhies  which  they  in- 
volve. Especially  we  praise  thee,  for  the  public  services  and 
private  virtues  of  the  distinguished  soldier,  patriot,  and  states- 
man, whose  recent  death  we  now  affectionately  deplore.  Raise 
up,  we  pray  thee,  others,  after  him,  and  through  all  coming 
time,  to  administer  worthily  the  free  and  happy  institutions 
with  which  thy  providence  hath  blessed  us;  that  ruling  in  thy 
fear,  they  may  be  instruments  of  thine  in  extending  that  true 
wisdom  and  knowledge  which  can  alone  be  the  stability  of  our 
times,  in  promoting  that  righteousness  which  only  can  exalt  a 
nation,  and  in  establishing  that  pure  and  undefiled  religion 
which,  subduing  all  our  hearts  to  thy  obedience,  shall  make 
our  land  a  name,  and  a  blessing,  and  a  praise  in  all  the  earth. 
Encompass  with  thy  heavenly  favour,  and  endue  with  thy 
abundant  grace,  thy  servants,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  all  in  authority  under  him,  the  officers  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  this  Commonwealth,  and  the  municipal  authorities 
of  the  City  in  which  we  are  assembled.  Let  thy  continual 
pity  cleanse  and  defend  thy  Church;  and  upon  all  the  minis- 
ters of  thy  holy  word  and  ordinances  pour  down  the  dew  of 
thy  continual  blessing,  that  both  by  their  life  and  doctrine, 
they  may  set  forth  thy  true  and  living  word,  and  the  people 
obediently  follow  the  same.  Take  to  thy  holy  keeping,  God 
and  Father  of  us  all,  and,  as  thou  seest  best  for  us,  sustain, 
direct,  and  bless,  tiie  various  institutions  of  our  common  coun- 
try, and  the  several  interests,  social,  domestic,  and  personal, 
which  concern  us  as  communities,  as  families,  and  as  individ- 
ual men.  And,  finally,  give  us  all  grace  so  to  walk  in  the 
way  of  our  holy  profession,  that  thou  mayest  delight  to  dwell 
among  us, and  to  do  us  good;  and  that  all  the  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual blessings  with  which  thou  hast  favoured  us, even  from  of  old, 
and  beyond  all  other  nations,  may,  through  thy  good  providence 
be  continued  to  us,  and  to  our  children,  a  possession  forever. 
Let  thy  protection  and  thy  blessing  be  with  us  in  this  place,  and 
on  this  solemn  occasion.  Fill  the  hearts  of  all  who  are  here 
present  with  a  deep  sense  of  human  mortality,  and  of  human 
accountability.  May  the  duties  of  the  day  be  ably  and  faith- 
fully discharged,  to  the  instruction,  improvement,  and  advan- 
tage of  us  all.  And  may  thy  blessing  go  with  us,  when  we  go 
hence,  to  follow  us  all  the  days  of  our  life,  and  at  the  last,  to 
lead  us  to  that  high  and  holy  place,  which  is  prepared  for 
those  who  faithfully  serve  thee.  Grant  this,  O  Lord,  for  Je- 
sus Christ's  sake,  our  only  Mediator  and  advocate. 


100 

The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God, 
and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  with  us  all  ever- 
more.    Amen. 

IV. ...FUNERAL    AWTHEM....(fliande/.) 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen!  they  that  were  great  among 
the  Nations,  and  Rulers  of  the  People. — The  People  will  tell 
of  their  wisdom!  The  righteous  shall  be  had  in  everlasting, 
remembrance,  and  the  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the 
firmament.  Their  bodies  are  buried  in  peace;  but  their  name 
liveth  evermore. 


v....iSulofl2  tjfi  f^on,  Joi^n  ^.  strains. 


VI.. ..HYMN.. ..(Tune  Trivoli.) 

Cease,  ye  mourners,  cease  to  languish 

O'er  the  grave  of  those  you  love; 

Pain,  and  death,  and  night,  and  anguish, 

Enter  not  the  world  above. 

They  are  blessed,  they  are  blessed, 
Who  their  country's  cause  have  served. 

While  our  silent  steps  are  straying. 
Lonely  through  night's  deepening  shade, 
Glory's  brightest  beams  are  playing 
Round  the  immortal  spirit's  head. 

They  are  blessed,  &c. 

Light  and  peace  at  once  deriving. 
From  the  hand  of  God  most  high  ; 
In  His  glorious  presence  living. 
They  shall  never — never  die! 

They  are  blessed,  &c. 


vri.... BENEDICTION,  by  Rev.  William  Croswell. 


